The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

Summer Nights and Meteorite by Hannah Reynolds G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, 2024 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Melissa Lasher Buy at Bookshop.org Summer Nights and Meteorites is Reynolds’ third standalone YA romcom. Each revolves around a different will-they-won’t-they romance, and they’re all set at the sprawling Nantucket family home owned by the old-money, sharp-witted Sephardic Barbanel family. What a joy it was to be back in Hannah Reynolds’ Nantucket, with its vast blue seas, rambling gardens, and—mezuzahs. Or at least one modest mezuzah on the not-at-all-modest Golden Doors mansion. Our heroine is a less-moneyed and serially unlucky-in-love summer visitor, Jordan Edelman. Jordan’s vibe is very Magic Shell on the outside, melty ice cream on the inside. She fumes with an ocean’s worth of resentment for how much time her single dad spends with his summer research assistant, the mysterious Ethan Barbanel. She’s furious about spending her last summer before coll...

Eight Nights of Flirting by Hannah Reynolds Razorbill (imprint of Penguin Random House), 2022 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Evonne Marzouk   Buy at Bookshop.org   Hannah Reynolds’ newest novel, Eight Nights of Flirting , tells an enjoyable story about a girl finding love and finding herself. Sixteen-year old Shira Barbanel is warm and loving with her large Sephardic Jewish family, but often struggles to build close friendships and connect with love interests. She definitely does not want to connect with eighteen year old Tyler, who humiliated her several years before. But unexpectedly alone together in her grandparents’ Nantucket house for the first night of Hanukkah, Shira and Tyler strike a surprising deal. Tyler will teach Shira how to flirt with her current crush, Isaac, in exchange for an introduction to advance his career. This high society story takes place in snowy Nantucket over Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Years’ Eve, indulging fantasies of wealth, access and elab...

The Summer of Lost Letters by Hannah Reynolds Razorbill (imprint of Penguin Random House) Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Cheryl Fox Strausberg Buy at Bookshop.org When Abigail Schoenberg receives a package of her grandmother Ruth’s personal effects, the last thing she expected to find was a bundle of love letters. However, the stranger part is that these letters were not signed by her grandfather, but instead by someone named Edward, of whom Abby’s family knows nothing. Abby and her family only know that her grandmother immigrated to the United States at the age of four in 1939. So, who is this mysterious Edward?    After reading through the letters and doing a bit of online research, Abby discovers that her grandmother was part of an American Kindertransport program. She was brought to the U.S. and essentially adopted by a wealthy Jewish family who summered on Nantucket Island. After discovering that Edward is still alive, Abby attempts and fails to arrange ...