Eight Dates and Nights

Would not give this book away.

Hannah has been sent to small town Texas to spend the first half of winter break with her Grandma who she doesn’t know very well. And she’s being kind of awful about it. She’d much rather be back in New York City with her friends, ice skating in Central Park than in some tiny town with nothing to do and no other Jewish people to celebrate with. This town is way too much Christmas for Hannah. But then she sees a Menorah in a windowfront and realizes it’s a Jewish Deli. Run by a very cute boy named Noah.Noah is in to the kitschy version of Chanukah while Hannah believes in the more solemn aspects. And she believes her way is the only way to celebrate. But after a freak snowstorm, Noah has 8 nights to bring Hannah around to his way of thinking.This one was a cute high school holiday romance – but Chanukah instead of Christmas which wasn’t something I’d read before. It was sweet and informative and I liked it

Hannah was rude and condescending and I couldn’t stand her. Josh was immature. The whole book screamed stereotypical city mouse/country mouse, high brow/back woods with some Jewish customs thrown in. 2 stars is being generous

This was a fun book to listen to. I enjoyed hearing about Hannah going from New York to small-town Texas to visit her grandmother for Hanukkah. She thinks she'll hate it and can't wait to go back to New York. She hooks up with Noah, and ends up working with him in his family's deli. I loved reading about Hannah's family, and how she learned to appreciate them. She becomes more spontaneous, and Noah gets more flexible about planning things.I loved the descriptions of holiday traditions.It was a good story about family, friendship and traditions. I especially liked the end that described the Jewish people and the miracle of Hanukkah.

I’m not Jewish myself, but someone pointed out to me the other day that Hannukah was beginning and I’ve been trying to read more books by Jewish authors ever since the war in Israel started, so I picked up this one because it looked cute. It was super fun, had a good voice, and I read it in under 24 hours. Hannah, a Jewish girl from New York, has to spend the holidays with her non-Jewish grandma in small-town Texas. She develops a little vacation romance with Noah, who is the only other Jewish kid in town and kinda obsessed with the Jewish history of the area. It has all the Hallmarky holiday movie tropes – “we have to save our struggling, cute small business” and the business is a kosher deli, where Hannah somehow ends up working despite only being in town for a week it’s kinda ambiguous for most of the story whether she’s going to get paid in actual money or just kosher pickles. Speaking of pickles, this was my favorite paragraph of the book:“Pickles are one of my favorites. They’re all about potential. They start out a cucumber and, by sheer will and patience, transform into something much more complex and tasty. Unlike people, pickles are praised when they become more sour and a little salty. I should have been a pickle. Then I would be appreciated for who I truly am.”This book was really fluffy and cute and fun, the kind of book I call brain candy. There were a couple deeper moments where she and Noah talk about Jewish identity and the history of the holiday. Towards the end I felt like it treated a vacation romance with an inappropriate amount of gravitas. Noah is hurt when he finds out Hannah’s flight home is coming before the end of Hanukkah so they won’t be able to celebrate together and Hannah feels like she’s betrayed him by getting ready to go home, even though he knew from the beginning that she was just on vacation and didn’t live there. I feel like the “Oh no, I have to leave this small town and my lover behind” trope works better in stories where both lovers actually live in the small town and could realistically have planned a long-term relationship.Overall, it was a cute, fun romance that taught me about Hanukkah and it inspired me to learn how to cook latkes, which I only burned a little.