The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen by Isaac Blum

This was long listed for the YA National Book Award category and is a thoroughly enjoyable if predictable read. It is a classic Romeo and Juliet situation, but nobody dies and the families are feuding over culture and religion rather than something else. Fifteen-year-old Yehuda “Hoodie” Rosen and his Orthodox Jewish family have recently moved to Tregaron, Pennsylvania, because the cost of living in their previous town became too expensive. The community is not overwhelmingly welcoming and the mayor is down right hostile. When Hoodie meets Anna-Marie Diaz-O’Leary, the mayor's daughter, it is a thunderbolt of interest for him. She is something else, something he hasn't seen or known. After he and Anna-Marie are spotted cleaning some up antisemitic graffiti together, both Hoodie’s father and the rabbi forbid him from seeing her again because she isn’t Jewish. So their relationship goes underground, but as they continue to grow closer, tensions rise in Tregaron. Many residents oppose the high-rise that Hoodie’s father, a developer, proposes to build in order to house more Orthodox families, and they express their opinions through verbal and physical antisemitic attacks. With so much at stake, Hoodie questions why his relationship with Anna-Marie is taboo—and whether he even wants to be part of his Orthodox community anymore.