Magical Meet Cute by Jean Meltzer

Standalone Romantic Comedy

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an advance copy for review purposes. Ana’s Attic accepts no compensation for reviews, and all reviews contain my honest opinion. This post contains Amazon Affiliate Links.

Magical Meet Cute, releasing August 27th, is my fourth Jean Meltzer book. She usually writes relatable, flawed Jewish characters with some type of chronic illness. I don’t actively practice the Jewish religion, but I grew up Jewish and still celebrate the holidays, so I usually enjoy learning about my religion through Jean’s books. But Faye wasn’t really Jewish, she was Jewitch, something I’ve never heard of before.

Faye, like me, hadn’t set foot in a synagogue since she was a kid, but after the fiancé she was with for 10 years dumped her, she wanted to find herself, and found a book about being Jewitch, which seems to be nothing like the Jewish religion at all and a lot more like being a witch. She completely changed her life; becoming Jewitch, quitting her law firm in Manhattan and opening a pottery studio/store in Woodstock, NY.

When her quiet town of Woodstock was targeted for anti-semitic acts, Faye got out her feelings by getting very drunk and making a Golem. According to Google, a Golem is “a creature formed out of a lifeless substance such as dust or earth that is brought to life by ritual incantations and sequences of Hebrew letters. The golem, brought into being by a human creator, becomes a helper, a companion, or a rescuer of an imperiled Jewish community.” As a potter, she drunkenly made a figure of a man with clay and carved all of the attributes her perfect man would have on the clay doll. Then she freaked and buried it in her garden.

“I’m tired of apologizing for surviving.”

The next day she hit a guy with her bike, knocking him down and causing him to lose his memory. Since he had nobody and nowhere to go after the hospital, Faye took “Greg” in since she caused the problem. As time went on, she became more and more convinced that Greg was her Golem come to life. He was just too perfect, matching all the attributes of her carvings down to the long red hair she glued to the thing.

Then the book just kind of stalled out for me. Faye started seeming a little ridiculous and stupid, and their relationship never seemed to progress.

There were some great messages in Magical Meet Cute by Jean Meltzer, but it didn’t live up to her other books for me. With them, I also learned about Judaism. Here I couldn’t distinguish what is Jewish and what is Witch. Though Faye was obviously smart as a former lawyer, she came off ditsy and frankly, a little stupid at times. And though I felt a little pull between the couple, we never really got to see them together, only them fighting their feelings. I never felt the real connection, but I did enjoy Greg’s attachment to the townspeople.

My favorite part about the book was this message found throughout the book:

“This is the art of imperfection. The ability to look at your life and see the beauty in the blemishes. To make a mistake, sometimes many mistakes, but see your worth anyway.”

Likes:

Showing how anti-Semitism affects everyday people. Very relevant right now.
It was a fun and VERY unique story.
I loved Nelly so much!
I liked the Paper Boys mystery: Who is dropping all the anti-semitic flyers everywhere?
I loved the friendships.
Despite being a silly comedy, there was a lot of depth. Past trauma, abuse, and identity were worked into the story skillfully.
Easter (or Passover) eggs from her other books.

Dislikes:

I never felt the couple really get together and fall in love. The potential was there, but I never saw it blossom. Completely closed-door didn’t help.
I hated the dog from the first page and I usually love pets in books.
For someone who had very little Jewish background, Faye sure spoke a lot of Yiddish and knew a lot about the religion.
Hard Kosher Salami was discussed and eaten 42 times in this book. Apparently that’s all she eats, and the only thing she needs from a man is someone who can cut the salami easily. (I did go buy some Salami while reading).
I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if she was normal Jewish and maybe just tried a protection spell for the first time after being targeted by Anti-Semites. With all of the disinformation about Jews going on right now, I feel like this doesn’t help at all.
Besides the police chief, where were all of the non-Jews in this town?
Spoiler

There wasn’t actually any real magic. But why did the rose bushes die?

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The Down and Dirty:

From the title, I expected something different. I enjoy magical realism in books and I was hoping to find that here, but that wasn’t really the case. I have also come to expect to learn more about Judaism from Jean Meltzer’s books. That wasn’t really the case here either, since the FMC is JeWITCH. I appreciated the relevance of the anti-semitic events, and the message of learning to love yourself despite your imperfections, but Magical Meet Cute kind of missed the mark for me. I didn’t dislike the story. It was entertaining, but I can’t say I’d recommend it.