The Chosen

So when I originally put The Chosen on my books to read list I was talking about the one by Ted Dekker which my parents suggested to me. However, it spent so long on my list I forgot who it was by and when I found this at the store I thought "yay, I'll be able to cross something off my list!" and also "Why the heck was this book on my list?".  I am so glad to have read this book. It is about two young Jewish boys growing up in New York during World War II. They are from different sects and although they initially despise each other they grow to be best friends. They grow in their faith as one boy steps farther from it while the other decides he wants to become a Rabbi.
 The thing I love about this book is that it shows positive and negative sides to both types of Judaism and does a great job of showing what there religion was like during the high pressure time of World War II when they were just beginning to hear about the camps and brutality of Hitler. It was interesting to me how divisive this time was for Jews, they believed it should be handled in very different ways and fights even broke out at schools between Jews of different sects.
It is a fictional book that handles itself well with a very specific and very real group of people. I loved this book, it made me cry and laugh and I definitely believe its worth a reread in the future.