Perhaps it is strange to speak of pleasure when reviewing a book about the children of Holocaust survivors. Yet Ravel covers this territory in such a nuanced, compassionate, insightful and gently humorous way that this novel, along with the inevitable underlying pain, provides exactly that…Ravel does an excellent job of bringing all the characters to life, making us care about them, even ache for them. This is a sign of her great skill, as is the complexity and depth of her characters. Maya, in addition to being the daughter of a survivor, is a young lesbian struggling with the emerging awareness that she is sexually different from those around her. She lives with a mother and grandmother, who together constitute a matriarchal world for Maya that models for her the power and enduring strength of women… What shines through this wonderful novel is not the wreckage, but the incredibly impressive, one might even say heroic, impetus toward life on the part of both the survivors and their children. All the characters are deeply burdened, but beautiful. Wounded, but wonderful. And at the end of this heartbreaking but funny, readable book, what remains with you as much as the horror and grief is the almost infinite human capacity for recovery, resilience, hope and beauty.

- The Globe and Mail, Toronto

A lyrical, passionate and subtle account of the challenges faced by children of survivors, whose parents are wobbly and disoriented but still courageous and full of love.

- Lawrence Hill

Pure entertainment - a true novel-novel with all that we expect from the form: passion, drama and life- changing secrets that span decades. At the sa me time, it is a thought-provoking commentary on the legacy of the Holocaust.

- Montreal Gazette

Ravel's writing style is beautiful. I often found myself rereading a sentence simply to enjoy her choice of words. While the subject matter is a serious one, Maya's life is full of hope and humour.

- Bookworm Casings

In the follow-up novel to her critically acclaimed Tel Aviv Trilogy, Ravel unravels a “star-crossed saga” whose language breathes with an innocent and sometimes haunting wisdom, one which can only come from someone who has inherited a shared memory and deep appreciation of what it must have been like to be there.

- National Post

If the truest humour comes from pain, this book is laugh-out-loud funny, while at the same time so sad it makes you feel like you've swallowed stone. Wonderful, lovable, damaged characters. Addressing the unanswerable question - how to go on after something like the Holocaust, something so comprehensively negating and destructive? And the only answer is, you do go on, however broken and isolated you might be. Beautiful.

- Goodreads

Powerful… compelling

- Edmonton Journal

In this beautifully written novel, Ravel traces the effects of the holocaust on the children of survivors. One of these is Maya, now a middle-aged woman. A funeral leads Maya to reflect upon her adolescence and the events that led her to engage in a bizarre cover-up with other young people. As a teenager growing up in the late 1960s, Maya is mortified by her mother, Fanya. Fanya, who works at a local dry cleaner in the Montreal neighbourhood of Côte-des-Neiges, discusses her wartime experiences with practically everyone she meets while expecting her daughter to live a carefree existence. Brainy Maya tries to keep her suffocating mother and everyone else at bay, but then she meets Rosie “whose household was as mad as my own. Even the form of madness was the same. Like my mother, Rosie’s parents were both holy and unappeasable.” Maya soon falls in love with Rosie, who is generous in her affections. Less generous are a pair of brothers, Patrick and Anthony. Patrick and Anthony are also members of the looseknit Montreal Jewish community and the children of a Holocaust survivor. Like most young people, Maya, Rosie, Patrick, and Anthony are searching for freedom (or at least oblivion) in rock music, drugs, rebellion, and sexual liberation. Unable to find what they are looking for, they instead recreate on a smaller scale the tragedy and burdens of their families. Your Sad Eyes and Unforgettable Mouth stands out for its fascinating characters, dry humour, and ability to capture an era.

- Nairne Holtz, Annotated Bibliography of Canadian Literature with Lesbian Content

It’s 1968, Vietnam is in flames, and in Montreal, the weight of another war draws two girls together. Both are children of Holocaust survivors, but they deal with this awful legacy in very different ways. Ravel, a PhD in Jewish studies, nails the historical underpinnings and offers a truly sensitive read.

- Chatelaine