Off Limits (1)

Author: Devorah Rosen
Translator: Sandy Bloom
Publisher: Sapir, Feldheim
Copyright: 2010

The back of this book sounded promising - a book translated from Hebrew that doesn't deal with crazy impossible trans-continental plots! It is international, set in France, Israel, and America, but it seems to be dealing with individual characters rather than vague characters driven by an incredible (and I mean non-believable) plot.

The book does follow the typical Israeli format of following multiple viewpoints, but that's because the three main characters are introduced at the beginning of the story, when they have no connection (or at least no obvious connection) to each other. Oh, sorry - actually, two of them are obviously brothers, and I'm assuming the third is the son of their sister, but they have no contact with each other yet, and their stories are developing separately so far. The multiple viewpoints is clear and easy to follow - only necessary names are given and they're different enough so you can keep track of them!

There is a lot of telling rather than showing, which I find is another point typical of Israeli books. It helps in that it moves the story along much more quickly, but of course, in America it's considered not very good writing. Still, the story is clear, so I think it's fine.

Not a great book, but so far solid and easy to read. A good relaxing-time book, with a clear plot and interesting characters.