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JewGirl
The book is a memoir about identity, family, and the messy, often contradictory ways of belonging. Marcie Maxfield weaves together her childhood in Detroit, her encounters with antisemitism, her complicated relationship with religion, and her adult life as a Jewish American woman. She writes about the boxes society asks us to check, about being pushed into identities that don’t fit, and about the tension between privilege and persecution. The stories are intimate and raw, often funny, sometimes heartbreaking, and always threaded with her determination to make sense of what it means to be Jewish in America today.
Reading this book felt like sitting across from a friend who’s decided to tell you everything without a filter. I loved the way Maxfield blends humor with pain. One moment I was laughing at her sharp one-liners, the next I felt a knot in my stomach from the ugliness of the prejudice she describes. What I liked most was her honesty. She doesn’t pretend to have neat answers, and that made the book feel real. The writing isn’t polished in a “perfect” way, but that’s part of its charm. It rambles sometimes, it jumps tracks, it circles back. Life is messy, and her style matches that chaos. I found myself leaning into the voice, trusting it, even when it got uncomfortable.
Some chapters felt like she was emptying a lifetime of stories onto the page. There were sections where I wanted more reflection and less rapid-fire memory. But even in those moments, the energy carried me forward. She writes with urgency, as if she knows these stories need to be told now, before they’re forgotten or drowned out by louder voices. That urgency gave the book a pulse, and I couldn’t put it down for long.
JewGirl isn’t a neat narrative, it’s a lived one, and that’s what makes it powerful. I’d recommend it to anyone who has ever felt out of place, anyone curious about the lived experience of American Jews, and anyone who likes memoirs that aren’t afraid to be messy and sharp and tender all at once. It’s not a book that holds your hand. It’s a book that looks you in the eye and says, This is how it is.
The Book I Wanted to Read, But Couldn’t Find
Em’s Awful Good Fortune follows a “tagalong wife” ex-pat who travels the world with her husband and is on a journey of self-discovery to find her own voice in the world. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
Em’s Awful Good Fortune is the book I wanted to read, but couldn’t find, when I was living overseas. Most expat books are travelogues that focus on cultural exchange, language mishaps and strange food. I’m more interested in women’s issues. Having been a “tagalong wife,” I was able to use the international lifestyle as a backdrop for a different kind of story—what happens in a modern marriage when dual careers collide? I’m particularly interested in the imbalance that still exists between men and women, where women tend to do more than their share of multi-tasking and compromise.
Was there anything from your own life that you put into the characters in your novel?
Em’s story is grounded in lived experience, which is why the book has such an authentic, raw feel to it. That said, the characters are composites and extremes through which I explored Em’s basic dilemma: how can she make her marriage work if her own life doesn’t work.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Having lived in China during a catastrophic air pollution event, I initially set out to write about the real cost of rapid growth and industrialization on personal health and safety. But then, Em had a lot to say about marriage and compromise. And when I peeled back the layers to Em’s character, the issue of PTSD kept coming up. ParisTokyoShanghaiDetroit. The lasting impact that sexual assault has on a woman’s ability to live her fullest life without fear.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I’m working on a narrative non-fiction called Jew Girl. It’s about half done and I’ve got a 2024 pub date, so I need to finish it!
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
Em’s Awful Good Fortune
Em’s Awful Good Fortune by Marcie Maxfield is a fantastic novel that masterfully displays all that goes inside the mind of a woman when her life is uprooted by her partner’s ambitions. Em has desires of her own: a good family and a career; but just when she thinks she might have things figured out, she realizes that life does not always go as you plan. For Em, getting married and having children was just another thing to check off a list to achieve the perfect, balanced life. However, she soon discovers that sharing a life with another person is not always smooth sailing. Pretty soon she agrees to give up her life and her ambitions so her husband can pursue his own. Em, tagging along with her husband, loses herself as she travels across big cities in various countries, resentment and anger growing, wondering if she’ll ever get to be happy again.
This novel’s greatness is based on one main thing, and that’s how realistic the story is. It is told from the perspective of the main character, Em, and you can’t help but immediately feel attached to her. You understand what she’s going through and how trapped she feels. Every feeling, every new thought she has is displayed in such a way that makes her feel very real as a character. She goes through many things and emotions, and every time I felt as if I was in her shoes, just based on the style of the narration.
Em’s life could appear from the outside as a luxurious adventure. Because of her husband’s job she gets to visit many cities, Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai, Seoul… But it all comes with one price: she has to give up her life, her needs and desires. Understandably she starts to feel miserable, not knowing how to escape this awful fortune that’s befallen her.
This is a very detailed story of the life of a “tagalong wife”, and portrays excellently what so many women have gone through and still go through in their lives as mothers and wives: how many times they’ll have to give up their own unique traits and ambitions as a sort of “sacrifice” for the rest of the family. This book is not necessarily a feminist one, but it surely does open a discussion about how “violated” the life of a woman can become the moment that she loses herself to satisfy others around her at all costs.
Em’s Awful Good Fortune by Marcie Maxfield is a raw and realistic story that deals with complex topics such as family, relationships and finding one’s purpose in life. With an engaging narrative and immersive storyline it was hard to put the book down. By the end, despite the difficulties and the bad feelings that Em goes through, there’s one thing she’ll surely teach you: to stand up for yourself.
Pages: 241 | ASIN: B08QZ58FDC
LITERARY TITAN 