DNF. I have no clue what was going on here! Perhaps it's been translated and something was lost in translation. I felt like the story was taken apart and then put back together all wrong, because I couldn't follow the story AT ALL. There seemed to be barely anything mentioned about the supposed main character and everything was being told from the POV of other people. It was all so disjointed and didn't hold my interest.

In a unique debut a boy deals with his queerness and shame, conflict and threat of wars in his homeland, and the pains of family on the day of his bar mitzvah.

From both our MC Adam and a menagerie of other characters, this coming of age is chronicled through a series of strange but often satirical and insightful events. The novel as a whole follows Adam trying to understand his own heart. The events we see are many and varied from a religious but troubled father, a friend who may have issues of her own, a Palestinian waiter he meets at his bar mitzvah and more. Ultimately its about accepting queer identity while also being hyper aware of how dark the world around is.

The narrative in this i found to be exceptionally unique, as our author Eli is firstly a film writer and favours towards a very internal voice to each perspective. In particular, Mazeltov is somewhat of a letter to his younger self. For a debut this is unique and engaging and I'm intrigued to see where his writing talents continue to.

I really enjoyed this book and particularly the fact that it was an experience/culture I don’t have much experience with. It’s beautifully written and cleverly structured, and I thought the way the author embodies so many different narrators was expertly done. The chapter from Abby’s POV in particular made me cringe as it was so reminiscent of my own embarassing teenage years. The cover of this book is beautiful too!