Reviews

“Braff skillfully illuminates the failures and charms of a broken family. That teen longing for adults to act their age haunts long after the final page.” – People Magazine (4 stars)
“Whether he’s writing about religion, pornography, or the family ruined by both in this smart, funny, heartbreaking novel, Braff does it with authority, wit, and an unflagging compassion for his hopelessly broken characters.” – Jonathan Tropper, author of This Is Where I Leave You
“An interfamilial culture clash of epic proportions. …This is a powerful, sensitively told coming-of-age story about the ways in which rigid worldviews extract their pounds of flesh from us all, especially the young.” – Booklist (starred review)
“An accomplished, thematically complex, but ultimately very relatable piece of writing, a book that convinces us of Braff’s talent and ingenuity. …disarmingly fresh.” – Spectrum Culture
“Funny…poignant…The comic thrust never detracts from the novel’s intimate peek into a divided family.” – BookPage
“Braff brings together two very different cultures with sympathy for both. … An intriguing contrast in the struggle to uphold a set of values and the painful necessity of compromise.” – Publishers Weekly
“Braff draws an interesting parallel between the peep show aspect of David’s father’s theater to the screen drawn across his mother’s Hasidic world.” – Jewish Book Council

“A funny, heart-twisting story … [Braff writes] with wry humor, assured prose and a keen sensitivity to the emotional minefields of familial relationships … Braff deftly captures the monumental and the miniscule moments of everyday life.” – USA Today

An “elegiac tale … Brisk, readable prose.” – Entertainment Weekly

“The eponymous Green narrates his early adolescence … It’s familiar territory, but Braff’s direct, deprecating prose makes it seem new; wry and poignant, but without the sense that Braff is trying to hard at either … Braff’s dialogue and his eye for detail are crisp and natural … Heartbreaking and hilarious.” – MSNBC.com

“Hilarious and achingly sad in its depiction of a teenage boy’s troubled family.” – The Oakland Tribune

“‘You’ll laugh, you’ll cry.’ It’s a cliché that fits Joshua Braff’s very uncliched first novel … Engaging.” – News & Observer

“A strong poignant page-turner … A wonderful novel to have on your shelf.” – San Antonio Express-News

“What teenage boy hasn’t felt he was being held hostage by his own prurient thoughts? … Joshua Braff’s novel reveals such mental wanderlust with humor, asking profound questions that even middle-aged men with vague memories of adolescence will recognize.” – Dallas Morning News

“Jacob Green has a lot of “unthinkable thoughts” — and Braff’s great ear and lively voice communicate them with plenty of laughs and poignancy.” – Hartford Courant

“An entertaining picture of a decade, an age and a place in the world.” – Oklahoman

“Quirky, funny, and poignant.” – The Jewish Week

“Some might call The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green a coming-of-age tale, a comic novel or a riveting family drama. They would not be incorrect, but ‘hilarious horror story’ is more like it.” – South Florida Sun-Sentinel

“Loud, funny, bittersweet … It will resonate with most any reader who’s ever fantasized about escaping from his own flawed family … Braff’s pacing is so sure-handed, his dialogue so dead-on authentic.” – Creative Loafing

A “self-assured, comic, yet piercing first novel.” – Jewish Book World

Braff “pulls no punches with his fly-on-wall storytelling and scenarios equally painful and hysterical.” – Philadelphia City Paper

“Hilarious.” – Bookslut

An “unthinkably good read. It’s the novel that readers would search high and low for but are rarely lucky enough to find.” – Contra Costa Times

A “scarifyingly funny debut … Painfully honest and surprisingly compassionate … Compulsively readable.” – Kirkus

A “rich, moving, and very funny first novel.” – Booklist

“The novel’s pathos and characters develop as the tension increases, transforming it from a commonplace coming-of-age tale into a believable depiction of family strife that transcends religion. Recommended.” – Library Journal

“There are about three dozen reasons to read The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green, because it’s funny and sharp and wise and sad and everything else a good book is supposed to be. But the best reason to read it, I think, is that at the heart of this book this is exactly what you find: a heart. A great big one at that.” – Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish

“Joshua Braff’s witty and energetic debut novel deftly explores the anxieties of growing up in a troubled but by no means atypical suburban Jewish family. And, in the hilarious and disturbing figure of patriarch Abram Green, Braff has created a wholly original character –a man whose pathological need for love borders on cruelty. With its memorable supporting cast, its irreverent take on Jewish themes, and its flair for the theatrical, Braff’s novel recalls the work of such writers as Israel Horovitz, Herb Gardner, and Brighton Beach Memoirs – era Neil Simon.” – Adam Langer, author of Crossing California

“I read it compulsively, rooting every step of the way for its flawed and fractious characters.” – Wally Lamb, author of She’s Come Undone