



The Judgment of Yoyo Gold
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A National Jewish Book Award finalist!
A smart and powerful story set in the Orthodox Jewish community about what it means to fit in, break out, and find your own way, by the award-winning author of The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen. This book is Gossip Girl + My Name Is Asher Lev + I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.
Yoyo Gold has always played the role of the perfect Jewish daughter. She keeps kosher, looks after her siblings, and volunteers at the local food bank. She respects the decisions of her rabbi father and encourages her friends to observe the rules of their Orthodox faith. But when she sees her best friend cast out of the community over a seemingly innocent transgression, Yoyo’s eyes are opened to the truth of her neighbors’ hypocrisies for the first time. And what she sees leaves her shocked and unmoored.
As Yoyo’s frustration builds, so does the pressure to speak out, even if she can only do so anonymously on TikTok, an app that’s always been forbidden to her. But when one of her videos goes viral—and her decisions wind up impacting not only her own life but also her relationship with the boy she’s falling for—Yoyo’s world is thrown into chaos. She is forced to choose which path to take, for her community, for her family, and most importantly, for herself.
Award-winning author Isaac Blum returns with a new novel that asks what it really means to be part of a community—and what it means to break free.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A high school junior living in fictional Colwyn, Pa., Yocheved "Yoyo" Gold cares for her younger siblings, excels at school, and strives to meet the expectations placed upon her as the eldest daughter of her largely Orthodox Jewish community's rabbi. After she meets the daughter of the town's Reform rabbi, Yoyo starts to question her own community's rules and interpretation of Judaism. She pays teenage Shua Holtzman, recently returned from being kicked out of yeshiva, to remove the filter on Yoyo's phone that restricts her access to social media apps and "other inappropriate content." Yoyo finds release in posting anonymized TikToks about her Orthodox peers' "hypocrisy and unfairness" and bends rules to spend time alone with Shua as feelings blossom between the two. But when one of her TikToks goes viral—and leads to IRL consequences—Yoyo panics about being discovered. Blum (The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen) carefully outlines one character's experiences in her Orthodox community alongside the world she encounters through social media, creating a nuanced novel about finding oneself amid the perceived constraints and comforts of one's environment. Yoyo and Shua read as white. Ages 12–up.