Most Popular Books by Matthue Roth

Arty and Larissa have the perfect relationship. She’s beautiful and afraid of her own popularity. He sits alone and draws comics. They''re both social misfits—him obsessively, her secretly. They go to different schools, but they trade late-night phone calls and between-class meetings in Hebrew School. They never run out of things to say. Then one night, one of their common friends attacks Larissa in the darkest and most unforgivable of ways—the same night that Arty was planning to kiss her. Larissa’s world falls into a tailspin, and at the same time Arty''s own life threatens to explode. He wonders if being a guy is just like being a time bomb. His own body—his own head—feels like a traitorous enemy. As Arty and Larissa find themselves betrayed by their own feelings and torn apart by circumstance. What will this mean to their group of friends? Who can he trust? Will Larissa ever be the same—and can Arty ever feel the same about her again?

It''s action, it''s glamour, and it''s that best-friends-forever feeling where you''re on top of the world and anything could happen--and it''s the dark side of being the hottest girl in class. Candy always had a million guys after her. Only before, they never used GPS tracking and surveillance helicopters. Candy Resnick and her best friend Velma jaunt around the world, flirt with rock stars and power brokers, and party it up in countries that don''t even know the meaning of the word. But all that changes one night, when Candy turns down the rich and powerful Preston Reign''s invitation to dinner. Suddenly, she finds herself being drawn into his web, stalked by a maniac. Out of control for the first time in her life, Candy is on the run--dodging bullets, blowing up buildings, being chased through exotic cities, and fighting back with the only weapons she has: Velma, her natural wit, and her stiletto heels.

Yom Kippur A Go-Go is a mind-blowing meeting of pop culture, Orthodox faith, and hipster poetics. Matthue Roth is an American original: an Orthodox Jew who cites Outkast and Michelle Tea among his influences, who won’t touch a light switch on Shabbos but mimics a screaming orgasm onstage while reading his paean to Orthodox girls. From the World Bank riots (what can you do when the revolution starts on Shabbos?) to Thursday night tranny basketball in San Francisco’s Dolores Park, Matthue takes readers on a journey among the queer and hip streets of urban America in his exuberant memoir, Yom Kippur a Go-Go. With humor and insight, Roth describes the tension between contemporary life and the demands of faith. He falls in love and in lust with a panoply of girls, both strictly kosher and determinedly secular, to the accompaniment of MP3 rabbinical lectures on modesty (“Boys are nothing but perverts and filthy animals!”).

Herbie is lonely. His parents moved to a space station in the middle of nowhere, and there''s nothing to do. He spends a lot of time wandering in the ship''s ventilator shafts, and if he wants to have any friends, he has to build them out of spare parts. Deep inside the ship, Herbie discovers that a herd of gobblings have landed--monsters who float through space and love to eat metal. And the closest and biggest hunk of metal is the space station they live on. The gobblings are crawling throughout the ship, ready to make it their dinner, and Herbie''s the only one who can stop them! The Gobblings is a loose retelling of an old Hasidic folktale, "The Alef Bet." A boy is wandering through a strange town where he doesn''t know anybody. It''s Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, but nobody''s prayers in the entire town are working. The boy only knows the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the Alef-Bet. So he says the letters, and the honesty and simplicity of his prayer go through the Gates of Heaven (okay, in our story, it''s the landing bay on the space station) and save everybody.

The perks of being an émigré wallflowerJupiter was born in Russia, but he''s getting quite an education in America. He sees everything slightly askew - but in a way that''s endearing to (most) of his fellow students. A popular girl takes him under her wing. He falls for her. A bully sets him as a target. But Jupiter disarms him in an unexpected way. His best friend ends up hanging with a posse of science geeks. Jupiter feels left out. With dead-on deadpan humor, Matthue Roth makes everything illuminated about American teen life - like Borat as directed by John Hughes.

Matthue Roth''s inspired and insightful tale of a punk-rock Orthodox Jew who goes to Hollywood to find her place. Don''t think for a second that you know Hava or her place in the world. Yes, she''s an Orthodox Jew. But that doesn''t mean she can''t rock out. And yes, she has opinions about everything around her. But her opinions about herself can be twice as harsh. Now Hava''s just been asked to be the token Jew on a TV show about a Jewish family, trading one insular community for another. As in Tanuja Desai Hidier''s BORN CONFUSED, there is soon a collision of both cultures and desires -- with one headstrong heroine caught in the middle.