There was something fascinating about reading this book as a work of nonfiction since the style felt familiar from Jewish folktales and Hasidic stories. And, while it is not meant to fictionalize an account, it is also not written as a history in the sense that we're used to historiography. It's written as a...shtetl story almost. Which was nice from the perspective of a reader who likes fiction, but also a bit odd from the perspective of someone wondering about scholarly utility.