What do you think?
Rate this book
Yara
FEATURED INÌý QUILL & QUIRE 'S 2023 FALL PREVIEW
THEÌý GLOBE AND MAIL : BOOKS TO READ IN FALL 2023
CBC BOOKS ÌýCANADIAN FICTION TO READ IN FALL 2023 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ÌýBIG INDIE BOOKS OF FALL 2023
From the author of Maidenhead , a reverse cautionary tale about a young woman exploring the boundaries of sex and belonging in the early 2000s
Distraught that her teenage daughter is in love with a woman a decade older, Yara’s mother sends her away from their home in Brazil to Israel, on a Birthright trip for Jewish youth. Freed from her increasingly controlling and jealous girlfriend, Yara is determined to forge her own path and follow her desires.Ìý But Birthright takes a debaucherous turn, and Yara flees Israel for Toronto and then California. As she wanders, Yara is forced to reframe her relationship and her ideas around consent. Set in the sex-tape-panicked early 2000s, Yara is a reverse cautionary tale about what the body can teach us.
"Tamara Faith Berger is one of our best writers of the body, capturing in sharp, red-hot prose its raw animal urges, its often confused and contradictory desires, and the way our search for pleasure can be both liberatory and self-annihilating. Like Israel, bodies are contested territories, and in Berger's revelatory new novel, Yara seeks to wrest control and meaning from the forces that seek to instrumentalize nationalism, capitalism, pornography, and lovers." â€� Jordan Tannahill, author of The Listeners " Yara Ìýis a complicated novel about the confusions of consent and kinship, the way love makes victims of us all, told with cool, epigrammatic verve. As raw, destabilizing and searching as its titular protagonist, it's Berger's best book yet." –Ì� Jason McBride, author ofÌý Eat Your Mind
"Canada’s finest and boldest writer. Tamara Faith Berger is my favourite ball buster." –Ì� Anakana Schofield, author ofÌý A Novel in Warnings
THEÌý GLOBE AND MAIL : BOOKS TO READ IN FALL 2023
CBC BOOKS ÌýCANADIAN FICTION TO READ IN FALL 2023 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ÌýBIG INDIE BOOKS OF FALL 2023
From the author of Maidenhead , a reverse cautionary tale about a young woman exploring the boundaries of sex and belonging in the early 2000s
Distraught that her teenage daughter is in love with a woman a decade older, Yara’s mother sends her away from their home in Brazil to Israel, on a Birthright trip for Jewish youth. Freed from her increasingly controlling and jealous girlfriend, Yara is determined to forge her own path and follow her desires.Ìý But Birthright takes a debaucherous turn, and Yara flees Israel for Toronto and then California. As she wanders, Yara is forced to reframe her relationship and her ideas around consent. Set in the sex-tape-panicked early 2000s, Yara is a reverse cautionary tale about what the body can teach us.
"Tamara Faith Berger is one of our best writers of the body, capturing in sharp, red-hot prose its raw animal urges, its often confused and contradictory desires, and the way our search for pleasure can be both liberatory and self-annihilating. Like Israel, bodies are contested territories, and in Berger's revelatory new novel, Yara seeks to wrest control and meaning from the forces that seek to instrumentalize nationalism, capitalism, pornography, and lovers." â€� Jordan Tannahill, author of The Listeners " Yara Ìýis a complicated novel about the confusions of consent and kinship, the way love makes victims of us all, told with cool, epigrammatic verve. As raw, destabilizing and searching as its titular protagonist, it's Berger's best book yet." –Ì� Jason McBride, author ofÌý Eat Your Mind
"Canada’s finest and boldest writer. Tamara Faith Berger is my favourite ball buster." –Ì� Anakana Schofield, author ofÌý A Novel in Warnings
192 pages, Paperback
Published October 17, 2023
5 people are currently reading
221 people want to read
About the author
Tamara Faith Berger
13Ìýbooks45ÌýfollowersTamara Faith Berger has published three novels: Lie With Me (2001), The Way of the Whore (2004) and Maidenhead (2012). Her first two novels were recently re-published as Little Cat (2013). She has been published in Taddle Creek, Adult and Apology magazine. Her work has been translated into Spanish and German. Tamara won the Believer Book Award for Maidenhead. She lives in Toronto.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
January 1, 2024
Last month I read YARA by Tamara Faith Berger and I found this novel very intense. It’s a messy coming of age novel about Yara who leaves her controlling girlfriend to travel and find her own path in life away from her ex and her mother. I enjoyed the setting of the early 2000s and the parallels between the opening and closing chapters. This book confronts consent and sexuality. This is one of those books that I’m glad to have read but isn’t a fave.
Thank you to Coach House Books for my gifted review copy!
Thank you to Coach House Books for my gifted review copy!
September 5, 2024
i just don’t even know man
January 25, 2025
Now, anyone picking up this book should be aware before starting it that it's, as far as I can tell, about female sexual empowerment. It's a short, snappy novella that says "Yes, women get horny too. Yes, we like sex. No, we shouldn't be ashamed of that." Love the message!
The execution, however... I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt that I'm simply not the target audience. Maybe if I was a young woman struggling with the same concerns Yara is I'd relate better. Of course, being an almost-middle-aged man, that may explain the disconnect. Or, perhaps heavily implying that is actually as uncomfortable a thought as I interpreted it while reading. I'm not an expert in the matter and am open to hearing what women have to say on the topic.
There's some ultimately unnecessary discussions about Judaism's place in the 21st century that does ask some good questions but I found the answers provided by the author to be half-baked at best and intentionally left unanswered at worst.
Yara's big advantage is its brevity. It doesn't dick around (penis joke intentional) too much with the superfluous but the intertwined timelines being pressed into one does cause some occasional confusion. Did this happen at home in Brazil with the girlfriend? Did this happen in Israel during Birthright? Did it happen in Toronto or California? Sometimes, it takes a second to figure it out.
I give it a 3.00 out of 5.00 but I'm not committed to it. I feel like hearing other peoples' opinions may sway me higher or lower. Just say it's somewhere in the range of 2.50 to 3.50 and call it a day.
The execution, however... I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt that I'm simply not the target audience. Maybe if I was a young woman struggling with the same concerns Yara is I'd relate better. Of course, being an almost-middle-aged man, that may explain the disconnect. Or, perhaps heavily implying that is actually as uncomfortable a thought as I interpreted it while reading. I'm not an expert in the matter and am open to hearing what women have to say on the topic.
There's some ultimately unnecessary discussions about Judaism's place in the 21st century that does ask some good questions but I found the answers provided by the author to be half-baked at best and intentionally left unanswered at worst.
Yara's big advantage is its brevity. It doesn't dick around (penis joke intentional) too much with the superfluous but the intertwined timelines being pressed into one does cause some occasional confusion. Did this happen at home in Brazil with the girlfriend? Did this happen in Israel during Birthright? Did it happen in Toronto or California? Sometimes, it takes a second to figure it out.
I give it a 3.00 out of 5.00 but I'm not committed to it. I feel like hearing other peoples' opinions may sway me higher or lower. Just say it's somewhere in the range of 2.50 to 3.50 and call it a day.
December 29, 2023
4.5 i think. hard to read and hard to put down. berger’s prose is like nothing i’ve encountered before—it is both poetic and frank. i couldn’t stop reading this and i finished it in a day.
huge content warning for sexual abuse + grooming.
huge content warning for sexual abuse + grooming.
October 6, 2024
i really dont know how to feel about this one!
Read
April 12, 2025The prose was written like a stream of consciousness which was unique and interesting to read and the novel did a good job of depicting the confusions of consent in young individuals, but I am not the right reader to enjoy the raw and vulgar writing.
April 28, 2024
Weird, but good?
Writing is very frank and reads as a stream of consciousness, which I did enjoy. There is a *lot* of uncomfortable sexual scenes and discussions throughout the entirety of the book, so a formal TW for manipulative partners, grooming, and SA is in order.
For a book published in 2023 but set in 2006, the unfortunate timelessness of the discussion of the Israel/Palestine war was visceral and unabashed. I'm not as educated on the topic as I should be, but viewing the conflict through multiple lenses here was a great addition.
Prose is addicting, and I could have read it in one sitting had I not needed breaks from the content.
Writing is very frank and reads as a stream of consciousness, which I did enjoy. There is a *lot* of uncomfortable sexual scenes and discussions throughout the entirety of the book, so a formal TW for manipulative partners, grooming, and SA is in order.
For a book published in 2023 but set in 2006, the unfortunate timelessness of the discussion of the Israel/Palestine war was visceral and unabashed. I'm not as educated on the topic as I should be, but viewing the conflict through multiple lenses here was a great addition.
Prose is addicting, and I could have read it in one sitting had I not needed breaks from the content.
February 16, 2024
Really enjoyed my first encounter with this author. It's not an easy book to read, but it's also hard to put down. I think part of the discomfort comes from her ability to show how exhausting it can be to hide our trauma from those around us and even from ourselves. Yara slowly realizing how she has rationalized her experiences is the most compelling arc in the story. The character of the girlfriend is always present even when she's not, which fills every step of Yara's evolution with tension. I look forward to reading more from Tamara Faith Berger.
December 27, 2023
set in the 2000s, a Brazilian Jewish teenager, Yara, is sent to Israel of birthright by her mother who wants to separate her from her older female lover.
The book is filled with angst, with vivid, rather graphic, descriptions of lesbian sex and sexuality. The writing is terse and visceral.
I found the book uncomfortable to read and disturbing in its description of intimate relations.
Thanks to Coach House Books for a copy to read and review.
The book is filled with angst, with vivid, rather graphic, descriptions of lesbian sex and sexuality. The writing is terse and visceral.
I found the book uncomfortable to read and disturbing in its description of intimate relations.
Thanks to Coach House Books for a copy to read and review.
November 25, 2024
fucking riveting fucking brilliant and a lot of fucking.
okay i should give an actual review bc more people should read this book. it’s riveting, quick, disgusting, effecting. it draws complicated parallels between israel and regimes of enforced sexuality, it is hypersexualized and hyper embodied, it is truly a mindfuck for the modern day.
okay i should give an actual review bc more people should read this book. it’s riveting, quick, disgusting, effecting. it draws complicated parallels between israel and regimes of enforced sexuality, it is hypersexualized and hyper embodied, it is truly a mindfuck for the modern day.
July 6, 2024
This is dark, timely, and poetic. My sister in law got it from a trade show from Coach House Books (a great, Canadian-based small press). It reads like a series of vignettes. The story is quite upsetting but at the end you have hope for Yara.
Read
October 10, 2023Clearly I am NOT the reader for this title. Let’s just leave it at that.
Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for granting me access to an early digital review copy.
DNF
Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for granting me access to an early digital review copy.
DNF
November 10, 2023
this was great but at times difficult to read, challenging subject matter. full review to come!
November 13, 2023
this is criminally underrated but watch out for tws
February 23, 2024
A sexual odyssey that dives deep into consent, sexuality, religion and exploration.
April 15, 2024
Not sure why I even finished - probably because I finish what I start. But truly horrible. Did not enjoy
April 26, 2024
WOW such a chilling but important book to read. I was disturbed in a way that I couldn’t put the book down and felt so invested in the main characters well being.
Read
July 29, 2024this was a difficult read, but a beautiful work exploring abuse and power
April 7, 2025
Couldn’t put this down. Timely as hell and Berger writes the body like no one else. All of the grotesqueness in this novel felt incredibly justified; this world, our world, is icky and messy.
December 30, 2024
A teenager pushes the limits on a Birthright trip to Israel and flees to Toronto and California. An examination of sex, consent, and pornography.
This is one of those books I randomly stumbled upon after randomly stumbling upon a great bookstore in Baltimore (Greedy Reads!) So glad to have found this!
This is one of those books I randomly stumbled upon after randomly stumbling upon a great bookstore in Baltimore (Greedy Reads!) So glad to have found this!
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.