A Novel of Manners and Love. No, but really.

About one hundred pages in, I was ready to give up on The White Rose, never again to fall for the phrase "a novel of manners and love" unless when applied to a Jane Austen book I am re-reading. But then Sophie arrived and I must admit, I have a soft spot for socially inept, painfully bright Jewish girls whose true beauty shines through as soon as we take off our metaphorical glasses.....and by "we," I mean "they," of course. She threw a wrench into what was looking to be another story of a young man and an older woman feeling something like love but unable to overcome circumstances. Suddenly, the book became interesting and harder to put down because suddenly it wasn't a story I had heard before and yet it was a story I'd heard before. Korelitz doesn't quite get everything there is to get about That Great Concept That Is Real Love, but she writes so many of its little intricacies so beautifully, you find yourself being taken back to moments in your own life and seeing them in a new light. Not bad for what I had assumed was going to be a piece of fluff, fun and witty and not much else.