Oof, this book was a ROUGH read. Everything about the main character is juvenile and superficial. I would have loved the insight into the community, but even that felt just weirdly presented. It was not a good time and I kind of hated every second I spent reading it. I zoned out at one point for about 30% (i was cooking dinner) and realized I did not care.

Lawd this book about keeled me. It’s over a year since it published and I still can’t get through it. It is just not great. It’s so so so long for a romance book. I just could not finish this.

dnfed @ 38.7%

there’s something about this book that i just don’t vibe with and it’s getting on my nerves

i’ve tried to pick this book up at least 5 times across the last year (and hey, didn’t even realise i dnfed this exactly a year & 1 day later!) and i’m just not liking it at all so i think it’s a fair dnf at this point

firstly, i’m a firm believer that if a contemporary book is *this* long, it better be good & interesting all the way through (aka i have 8 hours left and i do not feel like spending a full working day with it) i’ve been reading this book for what feels like ages now and so far we’ve barely set up the plot??

i don’t know if it’s just the audiobook, but the whole book feels so jumpy in a way that i still can’t figure out who is who, is sam-the-boss & the rando marry me guy the same person?? i really can’t tell and i’m so confused

our fmc is just, so. damn. annoying. she’s trying to be all mary sue but it’s coming across as just, juvenile?? everything just feels so surface level? there’s just certain things she says or thinks that makes me go “dude what?!”

ALSO HER SISTER IS 14 AND PREGNANT & DOESN’T KNOW THE FATHER & that just all gets glossed over??

and i’m guessing the authors trying to go for a lil enemies to lovers vibe, but i’m going to bet it’s going to be a “he’s a jerk and suddenly they’re in love with no chemistry” vibe instead

overall, if there is a redeeming factor to this book, i just don’t feel like spending more time to get there, i just feel absolutely nothing but annoyance when i think about reading this sooo yeah

. The book was just okay for me. I wanted to love it but I saw some comments the author made and it definitely lessened my enjoyment of the book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an audio ARC of this book in exchange for nd honest review, All opinions are my own.
I really wanted to like this., I did. I wanted to give it a chance in the hopes it would surprise me, even knowing that the chances I would be disappointed were high. As someone who has dated in the Orthodox Jewish community, but basically never gets to read about it in main steam media I was excited for the chance to read this book. Unfortunately I found the representation of dating in the Jewish Orthodox world very "off" and was very hard to get through- I was cringing a lot and was honestly even a bit annoyed the portrayal.
I did think the convo surrounding infertility and how that might come into play in the dating stage of life, especially in the community, was very interesting while keeping the overall vibe of the book light and breezy.
This book wasn't all bad but it ultimately wasn't for me.

2 stars is generous

Penina is a single woman in the Orthodox Jewish Community of Minneapolis. She longs for love and marriage and family. But she cannot have children and that makes the prospects of a good match difficult. The Match Maker keeps matching her with older creeps or "way too emotionally attached" Momma's Boys.

When Penina's sister admits that she and her family are on the risk of losing their home to foreclosure, Penina feels she has to make a sacrifice. When she's matched with a Gay man who wants to get married to a woman to make his dying mother happy and agrees to help pay off the outstanding debt on her sister's house, she thinks she's found the best option - once her mother in law dies she can get divorced and move on with her life.

Then one day her boss gets ill and his incredibly handsome, single and rich son takes over. But he's not Orthodox so that means he's out of bounds.

Now she's torn - faith, family or feelings?

++++++++

I received this audiobook free from Net Gallery in exchange for an honest review.

I found no chemistry between Penina and Sam (the boss' son). She constantly obsesses about how handsome and attractive he is, but I felt nothing. And it seemed like she was constantly commenting on her infertility. We get it - you can't have babies, there was no need to bring it up in almost EVERY chapter.

But then we get to the reader of the book. Throughout the book she pronounced Hebrew words wrong (I asked many of my Jewish friends to be sure) and everytime she said them, she said them differently. She even pronounced non-Hebrew words oddly and I found myself being constantly distracted by it.

So I do wonder if I would have liked the book more had I physically read it, but frankly, I do not wonder enough to find a print copy and rereading a book I did not like.

An orthodox Jewish woman who struggles with infertility finds herself slim on marriage prospects. When she finds herself leaning toward a man willing to be husband in title only she gets a new boss who drives her CRAZY! With sparks flying she finds herself wondering

Even though I am not Jewish I really enjoyed learning about the culture through the setting of this book. There might have been things that went over my head but I did not feel there was too much to really understand the story they were trying to get across. I love seeing representation of different people in my books and that was really awesome to read about while staying in a fun genre.

My one criticism of this book is that I was not really rooting for the male main character. Like at all. I feel like there was not enough for us as readers to really go on and there were too many moments where to me I just felt myself thinking 'ehhh'. I feel like one perk of romance books is the swoon worthy male main characters and this one fell too flat for me. Because of that I found myself not drawn to the book as much as I wish I had. It pains me to rate it three stars but I think I wasn't the target audience for this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the audio ARC! This wasn’t quite what I thought it would be, but was still fun and cute! I appreciate the representation and recognize that this was just not my cup of tea.

3⭐️
ARC

29 year old Penina longs for love and marriage but being infertile in the Orthodox Jewish community means the matchmakers aren’t setting her up with the best men. So when a secretly gay Orthodox Jewish man offers a fake marriage with a big paycheck that could help her family, what else could Penina need? That is until she meets her new boss, Sam.

I will say straight up I don’t think I was the right audience for this book, I realized within the first chapter. If you look at my Goodreads you can see that my particular *taste* in books is a complete 180 to this and I don’t relate well to a book about a straight and conservative Orthodox Jew. While this wasn’t my normal cup of tea, I did learn a lot about Orthodox Jewish culture and community, something that I was not familiar with. Have you ever read or watched something and said “you can totally tell this was made in —“. Thats what this book was. The pop culture references were out of this world and its very obvious that this was written in the 2020’s.

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for an advanced audio copy for an honest review.

There aren’t nearly enough Jewish romcoms available, and I always try to make a point to diversify my reading, so I was excited to read and listen to UNORTHODOX LOVE.

I really enjoyed this story, and thought that Penina was a great Jewish rep, and an overall sweet story between her and Sam, who happens to be her new boss.

*many thanks to Alcove Press and Netgalley for the gifted copy for review

Unorthodox Love was a cute story, that I enjoyed reading. However, I had a hard time with the slower paced read.

I enjoyed learning more about the orthodox Jewish culture and community.

I would recommend this cute, funny story, just would keep in mind that it is a little bit of a slower paced read.

I liked this book. Is one of the love interests a little cringy because of some toxic masculinity traits he has in his managerial style? Yes... yes he is. HOWEVER, usually if there's no growth for the love interests in a romance novel, there's not much plot to concern yourself with finishing the book for. The growth that both love interests go through in the book is what makes it a compelling story.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

This book has me giggling. Penina and Sam were great main characters. The grumpy meets sunshine trope was very well done. I loved their banter back and forth. I could not wait for them to finally get together!

This book was good! I liked the characters and the setting. The author writes good too!!
I hope to read more by this author in the future! Looking forward to it!

This was a cute jewish romcom, cuter than I expected. Took me a little long to get through. I didn't love the narrator.

Unorthodox Love was so fun to listen. Penina awkward first day got me laughing out loud and here i am still laughing. it was so funny.

📖 Read this if you love
- Friends to Lovers
- Enemies to Lovers
- Opposites Attract
- Slow Burn
- Grumpy Sunshine
- Jewish Representation

Twenty-nine-year-old Penina longs for true love and marriage, but being infertile in the Orthodox Jewish community means she’s rarely matched with the cream of the crop—or even skim milk two weeks past its expiration date.
As if things weren’t bad enough, her sister Libby and her husband’s failed businesses have already put strain on their marriage, and now they might also lose their family home.
Penina is desperate to help, so when a secretly gay Orthodox Jew offers a payout in exchange for a fake marriage, it feels like kismet.
Enter Sam Kleinfeld. Rude, secular, undeniably sexy, and also…Penina’s new boss. The last thing he wants is a relationship, especially not with a beautiful, smart-mouthed employee. But soon an attraction builds that they both can’t ignore.

.... This is a sweet book with a refreshing and new take on romance. Most of the characters are lovable except for Sam of course who was a Jerk, he just sucks and I felt Penina deserved better, and i didn't really feel a deeper connection between them.

The family dynamics was great, very realistic. The bond between Penina Family members were great.

This book was quite long and dragged a bit. it would have been great if it was shorter which would have probably reduced the too many repetitions.

I liked learning about a religion i didnt know much about. It was interesting knowing about Orthodox Judaism. However I feel the explanation of Jewish religion was a bit too much.
Plus i felt Penina was not true to herself and religion.
There was a disjunct between what Penina preached and what she actually practiced.

I wanted a bit of steam between the two main characters, but i guess its understandable from what I've read about OrthodoxJudaism.

I absolutely loved the ending.
The epilogue wrapped everything so perfectly and gave me closure to certain questions that was running through my mind.
But I still believe Penina deserved better.

I Recommend this if you're looking for a different take in romance.

Thanks NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for this Audiobook

Received this book as an ARC audiobook from netgalley in exchange for a fair review.

Here's what I loved about Unorthodox Love, this book has all the feel good feelings of the best types of romance novels while at the same time introducing the reader to the Orthodox Jewish community. I love this book because it tackled tough topics like infertility, family responsibility, daughterhood, sibling relationships, and homosexuality while carrying a love story that made it easy to digest and be open minded about solutions to these topics. Of course, since it is a romance novel it is also expected that there would be over the top romance and tummy butterflies throughout in which author more than delivers.

Unorthodox Love visualizes some of the diversity that exists within the Jewish community in a way that young Jewish women (whether orthodox or not) can feel represented. As a woman who is not Jewish but close to the Jewish community I loved being able to see some of the traditions and experiences I have seen with friends represented in a romance story, and learning a couple of new things along the way.

My only critique of the book was the "social media influencer" part of the story very much felt like an afterthought. I can understand what the author was trying to due by adding another component to the main character however it often seemed to not really connect with the story and might have been better just left off.

As an audiobook most of the book was great except for the fact that the voice the narrator used for the main male character was not very sexy and since we are only going by the sound it was at times difficult to imagine the main male character as an attractive man.

This was such a great read! Growing up in New York I have been around my fair share of Orthodox Jews but this book shared so many fun tidbits of information that I never knew! I absolutely LOVED Penina - she is caring, thoughtful, kind and compassionate. I kept yelling at the book wanting her to see her worth as she has so much to offer her potential partner. I loved the back and forth of the budding relationship, wondering how Penina could be so blind! This was a wonderful book to listen to and it didn't feel too "love story." This felt almost like a romcom movie and I ate every bit of it up!

I was a bit hesitant to start this novel as I don’t know much about Orthodox Judaism within the United States (I can safely say a lot of things are different than the community I’m more familiar with in my country). But it was an intriguing and fun story to listen to and I learned a lot more about Orthodox Judaism!

I also love how the author portrayed the main character, Penina, as much more than just her religion but also included how important it was to her. Shertok’s writing is both entertaining and engaging and I’m a big fan of the audiobook narrator (Catilin Thorburn). The combination of both made Penina incredibly easy to picture for me. All the emotions and thoughts Penina faces come to life perfectly with Thorburn’s narration.

One thing I feel might be an ick for some readers is how oblivious to ‘everything’ Penina is. At some points I literally thought to myself “this can’t be real; how does she not realise”. But to me it did not take away from the story, it added a little charm to it. Another ick (of me) was that Sam kept touching her even after he was told that was not allowed. At first, I wrote it off as unfamiliarity, as in it’s harder to adapt to something when you’re not used to doing it a certain way. But when he kept doing it, it felt more like he wasn’t taking her faith serious enough. That was perfectly resolved in the end though, so fear not potential reader!

“Unorthodox Love” is perfect for those looking for a workplace romance that starts of as ‘frenemies to lovers’ (I can’t consciously call them enemies at first), a hilariously cute but awkward meet-cute, and has religion as a prominent subject. Infertility is a big subject as well, though, so if that’s something that is triggering to you: beware (Although the author does an incredible job of portraying Penina’s journey and feelings regarding this subject).

Thank you to NetGalley, Alcove Press, Dreamscape Media, and the author for an audiobook ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Listening to this book was some of the most fun I have had with a story in ages. I read the audiobook of Unorthodox Love, and would have listened to the whole thing in one sitting if possible. As it is, I finished it in two days because I couldn't get enough of Penina and Sam. I will be purchasing a copy immediately so I can revisit this story again and again.

Penina is a well rounded character with flaws, heartaches, and interests who has been searching for love. She also loves her family - sometimes a little too much. Sam is more enigmatic and brooding, though a lot of this stems from the book being written solely from Penina's point of view. I can't think of the last time I was rooting so hard for two characters to find each other among the obstacles put in place by the author.

If you enjoyed books like The Matzah Ball or The Love Hypothesis, this is for you. If you enjoy the suspense of waiting for everything to fall into place, this is for you. If you need a cozy read that makes you laugh and swoon, this is for you.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Dreamscape Media and Netgalley for the advanced review copy.