A person is a person, no matter who they are, what they look like, or where they come from; if there is one thing these 122 poems have in common, it is that they show us how border lines are no excuse for denying anyone humanity, compassion, and kinship.
Read MoreThis book was excruciating. Rum centers the misogyny that runs deep in conservative communities like the Brooklyn neighborhood in which Isra lives, where women are beaten by their husbands and are thrust into traditional gender roles. … A Woman Is No Man is one of those works that sweeps you up and sets you down winded. You feel more alive, somehow, but you need to recover, especially when you remember there are so many who will never come down.
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This meandering delight of a book takes you from a tiny shtetl in the forest to the Far Country of demons, goblins, and the spirits of the dead. Bluma, the baker’s daughter, and Yehuda Leib, the town scapegoat and thief, both stumble into the Far Country after a near encounter with the Angel of Death. There, they must make pacts with demons, answer ancient riddles, and learn how to navigate the winding nature of the land in order to make it out alive — and, for the most part, intact.
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