In Han­nah Reynolds’s lat­est young adult nov­el, Shi­ra Bar­banel cre­ates a mas­ter plan to win over her crush dur­ing her family’s Hanukkah cel­e­bra­tion. Six­teen and clue­less about how to flirt, Shi­ra knows she needs to step up her game to catch Isaac’s atten­tion. The log­i­cal way to solve this prob­lem: ask her for­mer crush Tyler for flirt­ing lessons. He’s charm­ing and pop­u­lar, so there’s no one bet­ter for the job.

Not only is Eight Nights of Flirt­ing a won­der­ful teen roman­tic com­e­dy, it’s also a beau­ti­ful com­ing-of-age sto­ry. Reynolds por­trays Shi­ra as a char­ac­ter hold­ing her­self back, think­ing she must be per­fect at every­thing to go after what she wants. In real­i­ty, Shi­ra sim­ply needs to find her own iden­ti­ty and trust her­self. Read­ers will see two sides to Shi­ra: one that’s care­free with her fam­i­ly and best friend, and one that’s keep­ing every­one else in her life at a dis­tance. Shi­ra must learn to let oth­er peo­ple in and break down her walls in order to tru­ly love.

At the heart of this nov­el is a large fam­i­ly cel­e­brat­ing Hanukkah. Shira’s fam­i­ly is the only Jew­ish fam­i­ly in this nov­el set in Nan­tuck­et; their Judaism is impor­tant to them. Addi­tion­al­ly, Shi­ra has both Jew­ish and non-Jew­ish love inter­ests, which adds to her sto­ry of per­son­al growth.

Eight Nights of Flirt­ing is a page-turn­er in which you want to see the char­ac­ters suc­ceed. This book is per­fect for fans of Rachel Lynn Solomon’s young adult books, or for any­one look­ing for a light­heart­ed Hanukkah sto­ry this hol­i­day season.