Title: Love You a Latke
Author: Amanda Elliot
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: October 8, 2024
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:
Snow is falling, holiday lights are twinkling, and Abby Cohen is pissed. For one thing, her most annoying customer, Seth, has been coming into her café every morning with his sunshiny attitude, determined to break down her carefully constructed emotional walls. And, as the only Jew on the tourism board of her Vermont town, Abby’s been charged with planning their fledgling Hanukkah festival. Unfortunately, the local vendors don’t understand that the story of Hanukkah cannot be told with light-up plastic figures from the Nativity scene, even if the Three Wise Men wear yarmulkes.
Desperate for support, Abby puts out a call for help online and discovers she was wrong about being the only Jew within a hundred miles. There’s one other: Seth.
As it turns out, Seth’s parents have been badgering him to bring a Nice Jewish Girlfriend home to New York City for Hanukkah, and if Abby can survive his incessant, irritatingly handsome smiles, he’ll introduce her to all the vendors she needs to make the festival a success. But over latkes, doughnuts, and winter adventures in Manhattan, Abby begins to realize that her fake boyfriend and his family might just be igniting a flame in her own guarded heart.
Let’s hear it for a Hanukkah romance with heart! Love You a Latke by Amanda Elliot combines holiday cheer with the fake dating trope, then adds in deeper emotion and meaningful moments related to community, identity, and assimilation. Does that sound too serious? Never fear, Love You a Latke is fun and has an overall upbeat tone… and plenty of Hanukkah joy.
Abby runs a coffee shop in a small Vermont town, but worries that the tourist trade has fallen off, which may imperil her business’s future. When the head of the local merchant association basically ropes Abby into planning a Hanukkah festival as a tourist draw (after all, any town might have a Christmas festival — but nowhere in Vermont is there a Hanukkah festival!), Abby reluctantly agrees, but quickly realizes she’ll need help to pull it off. Unfortunately, the only other Jew Abby can find in her area is Seth, the annoyingly cheerful customer who comes into her shop every day.
With no other options, Abby asks Seth for help — and he agrees, but with one condition: He’ll help her connect with all the great food and event vendors he knows in New York, who’ll be sure to be perfect for the festival, and in exchange, she’ll come spend Hanukkah with him and his parents. A fake girlfriend is just what he needs to get his mother to ease up on the matchmaking pressure. Desperate for Seth’s help with the festival, Abby agrees to the fake-dating scheme. How hard could it be?
Over the eight days of Hanukkah, Abby warms to Seth and his parents, and rekindles her connection to her Jewish roots. Due to an incredibly toxic relationship with her parents, Abby fled not only them, but the entire Jewish community with which they seem so inextricably linked. Through her time with Seth, as well as by experiencing myriad Jewish and Hanukkah settings and events in New York, Abby begins to realize that she can reclaim an important element of her past — her Judaism — without falling prey to the harshness and negativity of her upbringing.
Of course, there are also romantic sparks being kindled as Abby and Seth light the menorah each night. Their chemistry is lovely, and while Abby struggles to avoid entanglement for way longer than I’d wished, her resistance is understandable given the pain of her past. When Abby and Seth finally do connect, it makes the waiting absolutely worth it.
A subplot throughout the book is Abby’s involvement in the Hanukkah festival. Even though she is nominally in charge, it’s clear that the woman who assigns the job to Abby really wants to retain control — and her idea of a Hanukkah festival is essentially a Christmas festival, but maybe add in a game of dreydel. Part of Abby’s evolution over the course of Love You a Latke is learning to take a stand, claim her own heritage, and refuse to be marginalized or forced to assimilate. It’s all quite awesome.
I just didn’t want Christmas in my Hanukkah, the same way I didn’t want to dip a grilled cheese in my cinnamon roll latte. Both were delicious, but I didn’t want them together
Love You a Latke deals with serious themes about emotional abuse and the lasting damage it can inflict, but the book is not a downer in any way. As Abby starts coming to terms with her life, her past, and her hopes for the future, and recognizing that her life feels richer once she reconnects with the Jewish community she thought she’d left for good, she blossoms and is able to start creating meaningful friendships and romantic connections. She and Seth are great together, but it’s also wonderful to see her connecting with new friends and feeling open to a more positive way of living her life.
The Jewish elements in Love You a Latke are handled very, very well. I loved seeing the community and the holiday represented in non-typical yet very positive ways. Too often, I’ve seen Jewish characters included in romance novel in a tokenized or stereotypical way, but I feel that’s been changing more recently. Love You a Latke brings the Jewish without ever resorting to tired old cliches, and even shows how a new generation of young adults find ways to connect to their heritage and community in all sorts of modern, fresh ways.
Love You a Latke is just the book I needed in this week leading up to Hanukkah! As I light the menorah for the first night of Hanukkah tonight, I’ll be thinking of Abby and Seth and their celebrations too!
For anyone looking for a sweet holiday romance that has something to say, do check out Love You a Latke! Highly recommended.
Bookshelf Fantasies 
I loved it and thought it was well done! It’s helpful to read your “own voices” review to back up my feeling!
Thank you! So many of the sentiments and experiences felt really true!
This does sound like the perfect Hanukkah story! And how nice that the author did such a good job with all the details. Also, the title is adorable😁
The title is super cute 🙂 — and the book just really warmed my heart right in time for the holidays!