The Forbidden Book

Best of the Year: Boston Globe - The Horn Book

Dybbuks. Illegal printing. A genderqueer lesbian with a knife. Set against a backdrop of literary censorship and growing Jewish political consciousness, the sophomore novel by Sydney Taylor and Stonewall Award-winning Sacha Lamb is a soaring exploration of identity, survival, and, ultimately, hope.

On the night before her wedding, seventeen-year-old Sorel leaps from a window and runs away from her life. To keep from being discovered, she takes on the male identity of Isser Jacobs - but it soon becomes clear that there is a real Isser Jacobs, and people want him dead. Her mistaken identity takes Sorel into the dark underworld of her small city in the Pale of Settlement, where smugglers, forgers, and wicked angels fight for control of the Jewish community. In order to make it out, Sorel must discover who Isser Jacobs really is - and who she wants to be.

On the night before her wedding, 17-year-old Sorel leaps from a window and runs away from her life. To keep from being discovered, she takes on the male identity of Isser Jacobs - but it soon becomes clear that there is a real Isser Jacobs, and people want him dead. Her mistaken identity takes Sorel into the dark underworld of her small city in the Pale of Settlement, where smugglers, forgers, and wicked angels fight for control of the Jewish community. In order to make it out, Sorel must discover who Isser Jacobs really is - and who she wants to be.