If one is familiar with the religious Jewish life the book grabs you until the last page. A few small points are interesting however. If she comes from a orthodox family why does her father as a rabbi use a loudspeaker on sabbath and kiss other woman? sounds a bit strange.... in addition the very specific language describing in full detail the sexual experiences where not needed to make the book a fantastic book. All in all very well written! Looking forward to her next book.

I finished this book in a day and found it very hard to put down.
It reads as the memoir of a woman who grew up in a religious Jewish household, left the fray to lead a lifestyle of sex and "liberation" and returned to join the ultra-religious Hasidic community. The book promised to highlight the struggles a woman faced in choosing between a religious lifestyle and a non-religious one. And that is my biggest issue with the book. The religious lifestyle she describes consists of a joyless virtually loveless existence full of empty rules, stringencies, and empty relationships. The "non-religious" lifestyle she chooses consists of adultery, promiscuous sex, drug use, lesbianism, more drug use, and more promiscuous sex.
I had truly wanted to relate to the author, as I am a (mostly happy) Orthodox woman myself, but I do question what "life on the other side of the fence" might be like from time to time. I found it impossible to do so for two reasons. First the author's experience of Judaism was skewed, extreme, and not an accurate glimpse of mainstream Orthodoxy. Second, her non-religious lifestyle disgusted me and I have a hard time believing most secular people engage in half the things the author happily did in her pursuit of a "non-religious" way of life.
Like some other reviewers I found some of the incidents related strained belief. A woman who repeatedly professes to love G-d so much she joins the most extreme and ascetic Orthodox branch happily recounts how she lost her virginity in a synagogue of all places.
Her emotions just did not ring true to me. Nor did I really get a sense of genuine spirituality coming from the author.
I hope anyone reading this book realizes the views of this author are extreme and her experiences are not shared by the majority of Orthodox Jewish women. Some of us do live balanced, fulfilling and happy lives, and interact with genuinely caring and loving people.

"The Rabbi's Daughter" is a fascinating journey from one woman's perspective. I was interested to see how many peole were completely turned off by this book. I believe that those who were disappointed may have been looking for 'answers' from a Jewish perspective. If the novel is read in that way, I can see why there would be confusion.

However, this well crafted memoir, by a flawed, caring, idealistic woman, is far more in line with Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love" than a work of Jewish philosophy or theology. This isn't a theological work to bring enlightenment. It's a very raw and real story of one woman's search for inner peace. She looked for it in drugs and sex and being a part of the modern world. She looked for it in the most restrictive forms of Hassidic Judaism. What she finds along the way is knowledge and her own sense of self and balance.

I applaud Ms. Mann's bravery for telling her story.

Reva puts everything on the line and does not white wash anything. This book was unbelievably cathartic for me. The descriptions of her feelings and locations were incredibly vivid. It brought me back to my years attending a seminary in Jerusalem. I understood her hunger for spirituality, her desire to suppress her blemished past, and her fantasy about wanting to live a pious life. Although I never got married, I have many friends who did and now live in the ultra-orthodox world in Jerusalem. I am still not quite sure how I escaped the grip of marriage. I wish there was a bit more resolution at the end but it is a memoir, she is still living. I wish her luck and thank you.

My feelings toward Reva ran the gamut as I read her book. I would have given it three stars but I read it during a succession of visits to the bookstore coffee shop and found myself thinking about it in between visits. This book is pretty much a memoir of growing up with low self-esteem and its aftermath. What makes this one unique is that much of it takes place in an insulated Hassidic community. I couldn't help thinking of another very similar memoir called Beautiful Stranger by Hope Donahue. Hope also grew up with a distant father and narcissistic mother. In order to fill her chronic void Hope, who is very pretty, becomes a plastic surgery addict. Same story different setting and coping mechanism.

Reva had one thing Hope didn't, a mentally handicapped older sister. Eventually their mother gets tired of taking care of the sister and puts her in an institution far away. This devastates Reva and haunts her throughout the book, even though she doesn't seem to make much effort to visit her sister. Reva seems to feel that her anxiety and loneliness problems are somehow tied to her sister's trauma. It is my personal belief that her mother's narcissistic unavailability and preoccupation with appearances (such as bullying Reva into a nose job at 16) had a lot more to do with it.

First Reva tries to fill the void with drugs and promiscuity. Later she joins a Hassidic sect in an effort to atone and straighten herself out. After a series of introductions by the community's matchmaker Reva marries Simcha. They meet in hotel lobbies and take long walks because physical contact is forbidden. A lot of the young people in this book seem to feel that religious observance will conquer all of their problems and hang ups. Reva is over sexed and feeling guilty about it and looking forward to marriage. Simcha has some hang ups about sex and is trying to avoid it. They both feel that religion will provide them this outlet. She expresses her disappointment on their wedding night. The two become intimate strangers and eventually the marriage falls apart. Reva is left feeling even worse since she feels that her community blames her for her marriage's failure.

I don't want to spoil the ending but Reva's mother who made such an impression on me insists on committing one last selfish act. I would recommend this book along with Beautiful Stranger to young women suffering from low self-esteem, poor family relations and interpersonal skills. They should be read as cautionary tales about quick fixes, especially external ones.

I have not yet read Reva's book though I hope to do so in the near future. This is more in the way of a character reference. I studied with Reva for about a year in the seminary and have been a guest in her home, and remember her as a classy, gracious and sensitive person. Her personality *never* came over as crude, attention seeking or exhibitionist at all, on the contrary. I can only remember good in her and it pains me to see her criticized for her honesty. I'd just like other reviewers to know this about her so that they do not get the wrong impression about her from her revelations.
Gila Atwood.

Reading Reva Mann's story, I had to keep reminding myself this was a memoir - and not a creative and vivid work of fiction. Ms. Mann described her thoughts and experiences in a way that captivated my attention. I would compare her work to the novels of Chaim Potok and Jerry Marcus, who also produced expertly crafted stories about the struggles experienced by those who would attempt to leap from the orthodox world to one that is more liberal (ie, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Zev and My Name Is Asher Lev). All in all, I enjoyed the book and trust that Ms. Mann has found her peace and happiness in a way that will now allow her to write more books that will both educate, enlighten and entertain. (Marion Gold is the author of Top Cops: Profiles of Women in Command and Personal Publicity Planner: A Guide to Marketing YOU).

i bought this book with high hopes. it was poorly written. you went from pitying the author, to being disgusted by her. i lent this book to 3 other people who had the same reaction. dont waste your money.

Reva Mann is a gifted writer whose painful struggle cries out on each page of The Rabbi's Daughter. Her ability to express her feelings succeeded at times in eliciting the empathy of this reader - and contributes to the greater understanding of anyone who questions religious dogma.

Unfortunately, what is also apparent in this book is Mann's inability to understand the sincerity of her father in his own religious beliefs and approach to religion. Her father did not feel the need to wear his religion on his sleeve - nor to remove himself from the modern world. As much as I empathized with Mann's pain, I also think that as a Rabbi's daughter, she should have been more understanding that her father was a Chief Rabbi's son, who no doubt also faced conflicts as he searched for his own identity. Perhaps this is the type of wisdom that only comes with maturity, if at all.

I hope that Reva Mann has joy in her life, and that learning to live with doubts rather than absolutes gives her some comfort and happiness. I also hope she continues to express her many feelings in future works, that I look forward to reading. (Jerry Marcus is the author of four novels, including the just-published "Broken Trust - The Murder of Basketball Star Jack Molinas.")

Reva Mann is a gifted writer whose painful struggle cries out on each page of The Rabbi's Daughter. Her ability to express her feelings succeeded at times in eliciting the empathy of this reader - and contributes to the greater understanding of anyone who questions religious dogma.

Unfortunately, what is also apparent in this book is Mann's inability to understand the sincerity of her father in his own religious beliefs and approach to religion. Her father did not feel the need to wear his religion on his sleeve - nor to remove himself from the modern world. As much as I empathized with Mann's pain, I also think that as a Rabbi's daughter, she should have been more understanding that her father was a Chief Rabbi's son, who no doubt also faced conflicts as he searched for his own identity. Perhaps this is the type of wisdom that only comes with maturity, if at all.

I hope that Reva Mann has joy in her life, and that learning to live with doubts rather than absolutes gives her some comfort and happiness. I also hope she continues to express her many feelings in future works, that I look forward to reading. (Jerry Marcus is the author of four novels, including the just-published "Broken Trust - The Murder of Basketball Star Jack Molinas.")

such an honest, raw memoir, you can't help but feel for Reva as she tries to make some order of her jewish life.

This book is a self-centered memoir of an oversexed, confused woman who seems to delight in the sordid details of her adolescent life (which persists well into chronologic adulthood) and in blaming her problems on everyone except herself. Although the author claims on You Tube that she has changed names in order to avoid embarrassment, the descriptions are astoundingly thinly concealed, rendering it immediately apparent who her parents (a respected English Rabbi and his wife) were. Of greater concern, one wonders how her 3 children responded to reading of their mother's sexual adventures and fantasies, which she describes as occurring in a variety of places ranging from fecally soiled toilets to the sanctity of her father's synagogue. The idea, proposed by the author, that this book somehow informs the reader of the Jewish Orthodox world is preposterous. It is an astoundingly self-centered, blinkered, publicity-seeking "memoir" of a Rabbi's daughter with sexual, addictive and and other dysfunctions that can be summed up in 2 words---"total trash."

I just took this book out of the library, and after perusing it for an hour or so, will return it. It is a disgusting, self-centered memoir of an oversexed woman who seems to delight in the sordid details of her adolescent life (which persists well into chronologic adulthood) and in blaming her problems on everyone except herself. Astoundingly thinly concealed, it is immediately apparent who her parents were. One wonders how her 3 children responded to reading of their mother's sexual adventures and fantasies, which she describes as occurring in a variety of places ranging from fecally soiled toilets to the sanctity of her father's synagogue. The idea, proposed by the author, that this book somehow informs the reader of the Jewish Orthodox world is preposterous. It is a self-centered, blinkered, publicity-seeking "memoir" that can be summed up in 2 words---"total trash."

This book is a self-centered memoir of an oversexed, confused woman who seems to delight in the sordid details of her adolescent life (which persists well into chronologic adulthood) and in blaming her problems on everyone except herself. Although the author claims on You Tube that she has changed names in order to avoid embarrassment, the descriptions are astoundingly thinly concealed, rendering it immediately apparent who her parents (a respected English Rabbi and his wife) were. Of greater concern, one wonders how her 3 children responded to reading of their mother's sexual adventures and fantasies, which she describes as occurring in a variety of places ranging from fecally soiled toilets to the sanctity of her father's synagogue. The idea, proposed by the author, that this book somehow informs the reader of the Jewish Orthodox world is preposterous. It is an astoundingly self-centered, blinkered, publicity-seeking "memoir" of a Rabbi's daughter with sexual, addictive and and other dysfunctions that can be summed up in 2 words---"total trash."

Reva Mann is a good writer and has had a very "unorthodox" life which she tries to give over to the reader in an imaginative way. I enjoyed her book and read thru it very quickly however I thought some of the passages were a little too graphic for my taste. I wondered what her kids would think reading thru their mothers book. I think Ms Mann elected to be true to herself over whatever fallout would come from writing this memoir. I lent the book to an Othodox woman who is from England who felt that it was not a true portrayal of Jewish life and marriage and would give people the wrong impression. Whatever the case may be, the book is worth reading for anyone interested in Jewish life, womens struggles and personal growth.

I finished the book on Sunday morning. I enjoyed the reading, and was moved to tears in many places. The way Reva handles the transitions between memories from different periods seemed very natural. She is clearly a good writer with a skill for choosing and juxtaposing incidents to maintain tension all the time and create a "page-turner". I also felt close to all the places that she describes in London and in Jerusalem, recognizing them from having been there myself. I do think that the book is accessible to people who haven't been there though, and to people who don't have a Jewish background, so it's a real achievement in this sense too. (I have lived in quite a variety of cultures, and been influenced by various expressions of Judaism and Christianity, with a sprinkling of other religions and philosophies too, so I think I can say this with some authority.)

Even though I already knew of many of the aspects of Jewish law to which Reva refers, I was far more shocked at the descriptions of her experiences of what I would call "patriarchal brutality" in the restrictions placed on her as a woman than I was by any of the descriptions of her misdemeanors. I didn't feel that her descriptions were self-indulgent or gratuitous (even though the acts themselves might have been at the time). In the book, they seemed in appropriate balance to the other events and her thoughts about her unfolding life. None of the events seemed unreal to me either. Those people who can't believe that all of this could have happened to one person must live very, very sheltered lives!

I'm really glad to have read the book and will definitely recommend it to others.

The Rabbi's Daughter is a book about carnality, the often uncontrollable desires and appetites of the body, and the religious codes that are used to control them. It is not for the faint-hearted reader, or for people who prefer to have sex with the lights off, or for those who are offended by open lewdness. That said, this memoir is a beautiful book, written by a woman whose life has been a bridge between the holy and the profane.

Reva Mann is the father-identified daughter and granddaughter of important rabbis in London and Jerusalem. As a teenager, she rebels against the strictures of her Orthodox family's faith, indulging in drugs, sex, and exhibitionist behavior. Repentant and seeking redemption, she goes to Israel to train as a midwife, has a religious experience, and enters a yeshiva (a school for ultra-Orthodox Jewish women). At twenty-five, hoping that marriage to an ultra-Orthodox man will help her fix what is wrong with her and get closer to God, she goes to Mrs. Frankel, the matchmaker ("And vat kind of a husband are you looking for?"). After a few false starts ("Reva, darlink...making a match is harder for God than parting the Red Sea"), Mrs. Frankel provides Simcha, an American Hasidic Jew whose ultra-observant piety seems to Reva to open the path to purification. Within two months, Simcha proposes and gives her a prayer book as an engagement present. Mazel tov.

But the constant rituals soon become meaningless, especially those that require sexual separation during the weeks she is a niddah, unclean. Six years, three children, and one affair later (with the hunky Mr. Fixit, who comes to remodel the kitchen), she finds herself in the Rabbinical Court, seeking a divorce. After that, there is sexy Sam (a fixer of a different kind), her father's death, breast cancer, her mother's death, and a reunion with a brain-damaged sister. As the years go on, Reva ceases to ricochet between desperate piety and equally desperate promiscuity and eventually finds a middle way, a true path to redemption, "creating a synthesis of the sacred and the secular...bringing together the holy and the profane."

Reva Mann has a deft touch with description, particularly the ludicrous. After her ritual cleansing mikveh, the matron of the bath pronounces her clean: "And I know I am now as kosher as the salt beef sandwiches at Bloom's delicatessen, the ones made by the proprietress, an overweight ballbuster with long white whiskers growing on her chin." When she meets Mr. Fixit, she is impressed by "the way his sex juts out like a mango." Reva's father thinks her ultra-Orthodox husband has a bad case of "messianic fever," and the rabbi who pronounces her divorced wears a frock coat with tails that "flap like bat wings." The erotic scenes might be overpowering if they weren't so over-the-top and downright funny, reveling in the ecstatic messiness of whole-hearted, redemptive sexuality.

The Rabbi's Daughter exploits many of the clichés of the "bad-girl-turned-good" memoir. But while there is certainly a great deal of disorderly, sensational rule-breaking as well as intricate descriptions of what it takes to be "truly good" (at least by Hasidic standards), this book is much more. It is a rabbi's daughter's courageously honest attempt to answer the unanswerable and universal question: How do we live fully in our carnal bodies while we nourish our immortal souls? It is an unforgettably compassionate book about our fragile, faulty human efforts--never quite right, never quite enough, but always heroic--to find a way to the Divine.

Susan Wittig Albert is the author of best-selling mysteries and Writing From Life: Telling the Soul's Story. This review was previously published in Storycirclebookreviews.org, the largest women's book review site on the Internet.

Reva Mann is to be applauded for telling the Truth --for applying a rare dose of courage to the subject of building one's own life over the cracks and bumps in the road. Kudos for the author's honesty in exposing the pitfalls of extremism --particularly in extremist religious Jewish practice. In a time of too little truth, I am always grateful to learn the facts --especially of the kind Reva delivers. In each and every chapter, she sheds new light on the meaning of both familiar and unfamiliar traps in rituals and daily practices that --until this work-- have never been brought up for examination. Most of all, my admiration in her ability to give us hope.

This book is both hysterically funny and deeply sad...you join Reva on her jouney of enlightenment through the darkest times and emerge with her into empowered clarity...A must read!!!