first things first - this book was recommended to me because it featured a main character with a chronic illness. as someone who has chronic pain & fatigue, it was incredible & emotional to read a book with this representation (I'm jewish as well, so that was a bonus).

now to get into this review - the highs were HIGH and the lows were LOW. 

the pros:
• there's a great sense of humor in this book, and a whole lot of charm.
• excellent representation of chronic illness where it was featured in the story without being THE plot point or a big tragedy
• excellent representation of jewish culture and how different folks interact with judaism
• sweet, slow building romance that i found authentic and also ridiculous in the best of ways
• i had so much fun reading!

the cons:
• a very insensitive "joke" regarding the IDF
• a .. strange .. comparison between coming out as gay and rachel revealing that she likes christmas
• often, jewish elements were over explained in a way that made me feel like this book was written for goyim. i would have preferred that terminology was woven throughout the plot so that those who didn't understand it would figure it out through context clues - every little thing didn't require a sentence of definition
• there was a scene where rachel goes to "meet santa" and sits on his lap / uses him as a therapist and the whole thing was so deeply cringey and uncomfortable that i had to put the book down
• there's a character who uses a wheelchair (Paul) that is seemingly used as a plot device to tell us how sweet and understanding and oh-so-wonderful the love interest is because he ... respects Paul? speaks to him like a human with basic decency? i saw in the afterward that Paul is based on a real person but this scene really rubbed me the wrong way.