During the late 70’s and early 80’s, Jacob Green comes of age in a Jewish family where his narcissistic father Abram rules supreme. There is no getting around his father’s demand for perfection in all things, so Jacob just tries to hide his worsening learning disability from Abram’s prying eyes. He lives a vicarious life through his older brother, Asher, who never shrinks from confronting their father, and often belittles the one thing Abram reveres most–their Jewish religion. Jacob also escapes by having “unthinkable thoughts”–fantasies about his hippie babysitter and what he wishes he could REALLY write on his bar mitzvah thank you cards. But when Jacob’s mother Claire leaves Abram for another man, the shaky family finally falls apart and Jacob is left to pick up the pieces of his father’s shattered ego. You may have noticed that the author shares a last name with a certain brilliant actor/writer who penned the incredibly cool “Garden State” screenplay. You go on with your bad selves, burgeoning literary genius Braff brothers!!
I couldn’t put this book down! It had me cringing and laughing right along with Jacobs ridicioulus and typical teenage boy thoughts. The charectors in this book seem so real that you’d expect to walk up to them on the street one day