The Judgment of Yoyo Gold

July 22, 2024
A high school junior living in fictional Colwyn, Pa., Yocheved “Yoyo” Gold cares for her younger siblings, excels at school, and strives to meet the expectations placed upon her as the eldest daughter of her largely Orthodox Jewish community’s rabbi. After she meets the daughter of the town’s Reform rabbi, Yoyo starts to question her own community’s rules and interpretation of Judaism. She pays teenage Shua Holtzman, recently returned from being kicked out of yeshiva, to remove the filter on Yoyo’s phone that restricts her access to social media apps and “other inappropriate content.” Yoyo finds release in posting anonymized TikToks about her Orthodox peers’ “hypocrisy and unfairness” and bends rules to spend time alone with Shua as feelings blossom between the two. But when one of her TikToks goes viral—and leads to IRL consequences—Yoyo panics about being discovered. Blum (The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen) carefully outlines one character’s experiences in her Orthodox community alongside the world she encounters through social media, creating a nuanced novel about finding oneself amid the perceived constraints and comforts of one’s environment. Yoyo and Shua read as white. Ages 12–up.