Strange Relations by Sonia Levitin

Marne is a non religious Jew who goes to Hawaii for the summer and stays with her aunt's Lubavitch family. She had wanted a summer in paradise but ends up helping out with her aunt's day camp, doing decidely unparadise kinds of stuff and learning all about how the ultra religious live, with rules and blessings for everything. She meets a boy which complicates things a bit. While I found this a good book and like the things Marne learns, there were a couple of issues I have with it. First of all, since I'm Jewish, I could understand most of what was going on in the family. I don't know if non-Jewish teens could make sense of it all. Marne wasn't always a likeable character, not that she had to be but, what did she expect inviting herself to live with a family with 7 kids? Finally, there was a whole side issue about Marne's sister who was kidnapped and never found. It seems to have been added to get Marne to understand God's agenda, but somehow, it seemed unnecessary. Nay