Four and a half to five stars. Parts of this book were absolutely adorable, and what an adventure all around! How creative the traps, plans, and progress was, too. It was an absolute delight and so validating to have both main characters be Jewish, and outright -say the names of holidays-, and ones besides Hanukkah. Purim is mentioned via the Book of Esther, and Shulamit claims Rivka wants the story read again so she can make silly noises when the villain's name is mentioned. I laughed for about five minutes at that, both tickled by the humor and delighted to see myself represented. I made shriek-y quacking noises one year during the reading. Often in books and media, Jewish characters are alluded to. More accurately, they're the funny, quirky sidekicks who shriek about how they're barely Jewish. Lots of screeching about how it's on their dad's side so it doesn't count. I know the meaning behind the particular phrase and can sit down and talk to you about it, and it is beyond the scope of this review. The characters doing the screeching cannot. Come to think of it, I've never actually known of an author who was Jewish, who wrote the shrieking stereotypes. (pointed stare) I hate it. But here, in this book, the two main characters were observant Jewish, front and center. No over-explaining about anything was present. They didn't have to pretty much justify their Jewishness or Judaism, as I've often read in other books. They just were, and they were and it was important, and that was that

Shulamit has what is coded as celiac disease or maybe Crohn's. So, a chronically ill character, too! And she's openly gay! Seeing myself represented on the page in so many ways, unapologetically, was beyond wonderful. The names Glassman picked for her characters are actual Hebrew girl names. This was not a fantasy book with Westernized coding and names, which is so common, I could gag. No, this was a fantasy book that allowed Hebrew and Yiddish-speakers to...exist. How simultaneously soothing and empowering! I liked watching the friendship between Shulamit and Rivka develop. They balanced out one another. I handwaved and got used to entire chapters being backstory due to how they were introduced: the previous chapter's ending sentence indicated there would be a lot of information. In the world Glassman set up, and the structure of this novel, this worked. The ending fit neatly, and that's hard to do in some fantasy books. I was pleased to find out this book even has a sequel. ( )

This book is just amazingly cute and fluffy! At the same time the adventures keep it interesing, and I love Glassmans way to describe the world and the charactes. Comparing dragon scales to avocado is just perfect. Did I mention fluffy? This book feels like being wrapped in a blanket on a rainy day with a cup of your favoirte tea ;-). ( )

I liked that this book had a kick-ass heroine "Rivika" who in the opening chapter saves the princess who rules the country. The princess "Shulamit" is forced to abandon her guards to find a lesbian lover due to their intolerance. This is the first Hebrew based fantasy I'd ever read, so that was interesting. The book is really short less then 50,000 words, so it was hard to fill in the back story to the two main characters and have a complicated plot going at the same time. ( )

This is an adorable fantasy-lite quest story with a lot of interesting tropes woven together to make something quite different. Lesbian queen Shulamit goes looking for a sweetheart, acquires a body guard who is a woman living as a man, and manages to solve a number of problems in quite a small amount of time. True to the fairy tale origins of the story, it is a cheerful and upbeat ending.

Setting is explicitly Jewish. Language differences between Shulamit and the bodyguard, Rivka, appear to be indicated by judicious use of Hebrew and Yiddish. A helpful glossary at the back cleared up which are which for me. ( )

i'm not mad, but i was... bored ( )