Yara

This provocative coming-of-age story from Berger (Maidenhead) raises questions about sexuality, power, and the intersection of the personal and the political. In the summer of 2006, 20-something Yara arrives in Israel thinking mostly about the unnamed girlfriend she has left behind in Brazil. Her meddling mother, who’s never suffered from a lack of male admirers, wants the same for Yara, and engineered the Birthright trip with the intention of breaking up the couple. Unlike the Canadians she is thrown in with, Yara has very little knowledge of her Jewish heritage or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and receives a crash course in both. Berger counterpoints Yara’s immersion with flashbacks; in one such episode, her mother makes her get a nose job at 15. When the Canadians learn Yara’s girlfriend is 10 years older and that they met when Yara was underage, they try to convince her that she was sexually abused. Much of the insightful narrative involves Yara trying to resolve this question for herself, and Berger strengthens the story with subtle connections between Yara’s personal struggles and the conflict in Israel. There are no easy answers in Berger’s engrossing latest. (Oct.)