One thing about me is I will enjoy every romcom I come across. This is most definitely one of them! Couldn’t get enough of these two.

Heidi Shertok's 'Unorthodox Love' is a captivating read. The book expertly explores themes of love and self-discovery, weaving a touching love story with unexpected twists. The vivid setting and sincere exploration of human emotions make it a memorable read for both romance enthusiasts and those seeking deeper insights.

I received this book complimentary from NetGalley but all opinions are my own.

Oh what an excellent book. I don’t know much about Judaism, let alone Orthodox Judaism. The characters were wonderful. I really enjoyed this one. Penina and Sam were rich in detail. Actually, most of the characters were well-thought out. I liked the setting and the storyline. I will certainly read more from this author.

Unorthodox Love is a compelling romance and a win for Jewish love stories in fiction. This delightful romp handles some serious issues with grace and compassion. While the characters may be wildly imperfect in the choices they make, they’re no less easy to fall in love with. The compelling romance may be what the story is based around. However, there’s a lot more to love within these pages.

Full review linked below.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for providing me this Advanced Readers Copy of Unorthodox Love by Heidi Shertok!

All Orthodox Jew Penina wants is to fall in love, get married, and have a baby, but infertility issues have prevented matchmakers from finding her a husband. When a secretly gay Orthodox Jew offers to pay her to get married, Penina agrees in order to save her sister’s home. However, her attraction to her new boss Sam is getting harder and harder to ignore.

I liked this, and I enjoyed learning more about Orthodox Jew’s faith. However, I felt like this was a lot of stereotypes - but maybe that’s because I lack background knowledge and the things I thought were not okay are normal? It was fine, but I don’t know if I’d recommend it.

I love reading books that have a Jewish Main
Characters. Unorthodox Love is fun story following Penina a devout 29 year old Orthodox Jewish woman who is battling being single and infertile - both putting her in a tough spot in her community. Penina's life has become very complicated between some seriously failed matchmakings, a new grumpy but attractive boss, her sister losing her home, and a proposition from a gay Jew for a fake-ish marriage she’s not sure if ever finding love and a family is even in the cards

This book is whitty but emotional, Penina is a likable character and you find yourself rooting for her; her dedication to family is also very heartwarming. I did enjoy how the religion is represented, a great educational aspect to the book.

If you’re looking for spicy this isn’t that book, but what it lacks in spice it gains in a story that that feels very human and real. Overall, I highly enjoyed this book. I will certainly be on the lookout for anything more that this author writes. Definitely recommend it to all my rom-com lovers!

3.75- Normally when I listen to books I rate them solely on the writing and not the narration, as it’s the author’s words I am rating. However, in this case I’ll be rating both, so if you’re planning on listening to this, you’ll definitely want to hang around for the last part of this review.
Penina is a 29 year old Orthodox Jewish woman and she is still single. Due to a condition she cannot have children and thus is not as appealing to Orthodox men as other women are. After discovering her older sister is having financial problems, she agrees to marry a rich Orthodox man even though her heart belongs to her Secular Jewish boss.
This is your typical cutesy rom com book. Being Jewish myself, I greatly appreciated hearing about Penina’s family and all of the cultural references. The book is a bit predictable, but such is the RomCom genre. I found myself only mildly liking Penina. While I loved her big and caring heart, I hated how she allowed her medical condition to define her and I especially hated how absolutely clueless she was when it came to dealing with her boss. It was to the point where I was actually yelling in my car that she was being totally stupid.
Ok- now we get to the nitty gritty. Caitlin Thorburn narrated this and she turned what was a cute book into an auditory nightmare. I don’t think she’s Jewish, which is ok, but she didn’t bother to learn the pronunciations of any of the Yiddish and Hebrew words. Hearing her pronounce “Challah” with a cha sound instead of a huh sound made me cringe every time she said it. I don’t know if this is a narrator issue, an author issue, or a publisher issue, but regardless, it was an issue that never should have happened. My star rating is for Heidi Shertok’s words. My rating for Courtney Thorburn’s narration is 1 star, because it’s offensive that she didn’t bother to learn the proper pronunciations of these culturally Jewish words.

Rating: 3/5 ⭐️

Publication Date: July 11th 2023

Author: Heidi Shertok

Review: I am very out of touch with anything related to Jewish religion and the way they date so this book was hard for me to get into and understand. I wasn’t able to relate at all to the MC. The book writing style was fine for me . But it wasn’t something I easy dying to pick up and read everyday.

Thank you netgalley and Alcove Press for the eARC in exchange for an honest review #NetGalley #bookstagram #kindle #kindleedition #eread

I wasn't able to connect to this MC due to living in very different circumstances. I think this would be a wonderful book for someone who understood Jewish culture and dating practices.



I received an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.

Nice one!

“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

Unfortunately Unorthodox Love wasn't for me. The writing was good, and while I am not Jewish, I do follow a few Orthodox Jews on TikTok and I felt that the representation was in a similar fashion to what I see there. These books are needed in the world, I just couldn't connect with the characters.

I received an advance review copy for free from Netgalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Unorthodox Love is about a twenty-nine-year-old Orthodox Jew named Penina who has the misfortune of being set up with men who are less than ideal because of her medical condition. A condition that does not allow her to bear children.

She then meets a man named Sam with whom she had instant attraction to but they are constantly at odds with one another.

"My guess is that it means a strong marital foundation. A rock-solid relationship that can weather good times and bad. And it's the everyday things that matter; small acts of prioritizing your partner's needs over your own. Something as mundane as doing a load of laundry for example or running to the store late at night helps to strengthen that edifice. Then there will be times when stronger action is called for. Maybe you have to defend them to a family member or stay home from a party because they're sick. That is to me, an everlasting edifice."
Sam Kleinfeld - Unorthodox Love

Would I recommend this? I would definitely recommend this to readers. Elements of Orthodox Judaism are present but not to the point where it preaches about right and wrong. Loved the chemistry between the main characters.

We get to experience Penina’s awkward dates as she is now too old for the best matches and unfortunately she has a condition that would make it impossible for her to carry a child (Be aware if that is a trigger for you). I only mention the trigger since she is pretty hard on herself and her view of her worth because of it in her community. But as she grows and makes some decisions that are more sacrificial to save her family she realizes that she is worthy of more than she was expecting of life. Not all doors are closed when you get bad news. You can still be a parent even if you have fertility struggles (watching the last season of Ted Lasso and keep telling my husband this).
There was a bit of miscommunication as things seemed a certain way but they really weren’t. Feelings got hurt when she thought he was done but he was just prepping his grand gesture. Which was a thoughtful and meaningful gesture! Also, loved the way that she ended up getting her chance at a family. That's the best case scenario all around. Maybe spoiler idk.
It is great to see rep from the Jewish community that is more Orthodox than Reform. There is so much more than the awesome food and vocabulary there are also rules that they live by to protect themselves and their reputations and their hearts and souls.

Thank you alcove press for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

I adored this story. Pennia is a trip, and I love her. Her inner dialogue was spectacular, but Pennia is a sweetheart with a big heart. She cares about her family so much she is willing to put herself lst at all times.

Pennia has had difficulty being as she can't have kids, although she puts up a good front. Meanwhile, she has serious feelings for Sam, but he isn't Unorthodox.

But she is getting married so she can't think of Sam - she needs to get married to help her sister - it won't be that bad.

I devoured this book and loved it.

2.5 stars rounded up. Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I’ll preface this review by saying I am a reform Jew. While I think Unorthodox Love had potential, it had a lot of not only Jewish stereotypes but just didn’t portray the Jewish community as a whole in the best way. As someone who had knowledge about most of the Jewish topics in this book, I could see how they may come off as hard to swallow for non or less-religious readers. But, that aside, I enjoyed some aspects of the story. There were many funny moments that made me laugh, and some that were heartfelt. However, I found the multiple plot points going on a little difficult to swallow, a lot of overdramatic aspects that were just *too* much, and just a lot of outlandish/ridiculous moments that ultimately didn’t deliver. The end was also super meh for me. I probably wouldn’t read another book by this author.

As a Jew, it is always refreshing to see Jewish main characters in contemporary books. It is even more refreshing to see a modern Orthodox family that is mostly neglected in fiction books. While there were parts of this story I enjoyed, at times I felt like I was almost reading an incomplete story.

Penina was represented well at times of almost living a sheltered life. But at the same time, I felt like I was reading a YA story with her thoughts and actions. I think the story could’ve benefitted from dual perspectives or a few chapters from Sam, especially towards the end. I also would’ve loved for the end to have been fleshed out a little more since it felt extremely rushed.

When I opened, Unorthodox Love, I was not ready for the cackling and heart eyes that would commence! This book was an immediate 5 stars for me with the opening incident between our FMC and MMC (iykyk.) Heidi’s writing was humorous in a way that I found parts of my own romantic story in Penina’s. Penina was funny and relatable even with her taboo “barren womb” in the Orthodox Judaism culture she was trying to appease. Sam Kleinfeld was just what we needed in a MMC and I adored him!

I appreciated Heidi’s take on religion, relationships, and how we view ourselves. Sam and Penina’s story reminds us that we are only lacking things in our life if WE choose to see them that way. No one else, no religion, no structure, no system can assign our worth and value to ourselves or another. Bravo, Heidi on a job well done!

Thank you, Netgalley for an opportunity to read a free advance reader copy of Unorthodox Love. I leave my honest review willingly and in support of an amazing book!

I absolutely love seeing underrepresented people as the main character. I was so grateful that the author chose to write this love story about a 29 year woman who is Orthodox Jewish & infertile. I love learning & reading about things & lives I don’t know enough about. This book taught me a lot & showcased a beautiful family to experience.

I felt like a lot of the story hinged on miscommunication & lack of communication, which is my least favorite trope. So I ended up with mixed feelings at the story. But as a whole, I appreciated the representation.

Massive thanks to NetGalley & Alcove Press for the gifted arc, which I voluntarily read & reviewed.

It pains me to say that I was very disappointed in this book. Ordinarily I love a good romance/rom-com, especially one with Jewish characters, but this truly disappointed.

Positives: fun fashion-related quotes at the beginning of each chapter; frank talk about infertility; positive representation of Orthodox Judaism; funny descriptions of bad dates; Zevi’s mother; the Minneapolis setting.

Negatives: the two main characters! Penina is 29 and is not only a virgin, but she has never even been kissed by a man, because of her traditional Orthodox upbringing - the result seems to be that she obsesses over men’s physical characteristics (to put it nicely). She is, in short, horny. Sam is the love interest, but his personality wasn’t attractive at all. There are a couple of scenes where Sam and Penina (she works in a jewelry store where he is the new owner/manager) go to a competitor’s jewelry store to scout them out and the way Sam behaves on their way to the store is incredibly rude - and this is while Penina is being kind and trying to help an older woman who seems lost in the parking garage.

I bounced between the audiobook and the ebook for this title, which was very convenient. However, once I realized there were obvious differences between them, I stuck with the audiobook because it was the more recent of the two. The audiobook narrator spoiled the book further for me. At 1.0 speed, the narration was incredibly slow, so I sped it up quite a bit. The worst part was that the narrator mispronounced words: common English-language words like “urinal” and “rabid”, plus fairly common Yiddish words like “challah”, which is almost an English-language word at this point. No, you do not pronounce “challah” with the “ch” as in “church”! She also did a very bad Israeli accent for one of the minor characters. So 2 stars for the audiobook and 3 for the story.

Thank you to Alcove Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance reader copy of this book and to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to an advance copy of this audiobook. All opinions are my own.