Dearest Anne: A Tale of Impossible Love (Jewish Women Writers)
When Rivi Shenhar returns to Israel for a funeral, she unearths a collection of her childhood diaries kept decades before. Addressed to Anne Frank, her old diaries chronicle Rivi’s impassioned and intense coming-of-age. Rivi grows up in mid-1970s rural Israel, living with her mother, a critical and vacant woman, after her parents divorce. Though largely isolated by her peers and superiors, 14-year-old Rivi is intellectually and emotionally inquisitive, and she finds solace in a budding relationship with her literature teacher, Michaela, who is engaged to be married. This relationship soon evolves into an illicit, passionate affair that lasts for years, providing Rivi and Michaela with the love and companionship they crave. Katzir’s prose is evocative, at times furiously erotic, as Rivi archives her progression from insecure teenager into a self-assured woman. The story is most affecting in the moments of internal reflection from an adult Rivi, later a mother and accomplished author, and in the raw emotion she rediscovers within the narratives of her adolescent self. --Leah Strauss