Rating: 
Summary: A Real Turn Off
Review: Of the many Holocaust related books I have read, this is truly one of the most unique. Skibell requires that we use our imagination to enter a world beyond our earthly reach. Put yourself in my soul, imagine with me. Die needlessly, lose all your loved ones due to hate and prejudice and watch others greedily take over all you had. Scream silently. What would we do? Skibell uses warm humor to depict the ugiliness and ignorance. We imagine, pain, yearn, cry out with him. How dear and wise is the Rebbe. How vulnerable is Chaim, even in death. Is this mystical or are our own dreams and nightmares close? Who would or could even dream anything as horrifying as the Holocaust? Who could imagine visualizing the aftermath? Skibell found a way to take us through it in a captivating, imaginary, witty, compassionate soulful way. In this, his first novel, he reaches deep to reveal such honesty and surrealism through 60 year old Chaim. Skibell's piece of imagination captures, grips, pulls, tugs, at the heart strings. The photographs, the reunion, the tenderness, the compassion, and mother's chicken soup.....all mixed in with blood, horrow, guns, graves, hatred and grief. Such is life!!! There is the magical and the morbid. We don't escape it. There was the Holocaust and we should never NEVER forget it!!! Not in life or in death. Through a good soul's spiritual journey and quest to find rest, and a lost moon...which too is helped to find it's home of rest in the sky...we learn. There are correlations between both. Through it all, we are to bless what we have learned and teach others. We are never to forget. May the blessed moon which shines down ever so brightly from the heavens remind us that Jews will not be smothered, as the moon will not remain lost or lose it's shine. You may bury the moon and bury people, but the glow will be restored and emerge shining. We can't kill spirits, only bodies. The moon shines. The soul moves on. A Blessing on the Moon is captivating and mystical with so much brilliant and shining symbolism. Thank you Joseph Skibell for not being silent. Thank you Chaim and Rebbe who will live on in our imaginations long long after this book is read and into many lives.
Rating: 
Summary: Captivating
Review: Of the many Holocaust related books I have read, this is truly one of the most unique. Skibell requires that we use our imagination to enter a world beyond our earthly reach. Put yourself in my soul, imagine with me. Die needlessly, lose all your loved ones due to hate and prejudice and watch others greedily take over all you had. Scream silently. What would we do? Skibell uses warm humor to depict the ugiliness and ignorance. We imagine, pain, yearn, cry out with him. How dear and wise is the Rebbe. How vulnerable is Chaim, even in death. Is this mystical or are our own dreams and nightmares close? Who would or could even dream anything as horrifying as the Holocaust? Who could imagine visualizing the aftermath? Skibell found a way to take us through it in a captivating, imaginary, witty, compassionate soulful way. In this, his first novel, he reaches deep to reveal such honesty and surrealism through 60 year old Chaim. Skibell's piece of imagination captures, grips, pulls, tugs, at the heart strings. The photographs, the reunion, the tenderness, the compassion, and mother's chicken soup.....all mixed in with blood, horrow, guns, graves, hatred and grief. Such is life!!! There is the magical and the morbid. We don't escape it. There was the Holocaust and we should never NEVER forget it!!! Not in life or in death. Through a good soul's spiritual journey and quest to find rest, and a lost moon...which too is helped to find it's home of rest in the sky...we learn. There are correlations between both. Through it all, we are to bless what we have learned and teach others. We are never to forget. May the blessed moon which shines down ever so brightly from the heavens remind us that Jews will not be smothered, as the moon will not remain lost or lose it's shine. You may bury the moon and bury people, but the glow will be restored and emerge shining. We can't kill spirits, only bodies. The moon shines. The soul moves on. A Blessing on the Moon is captivating and mystical with so much brilliant and shining symbolism. Thank you Joseph Skibell for not being silent. Thank you Chaim and Rebbe who will live on in our imaginations long long after this book is read and into many lives.
Rating:
Summary: Wildly inventive, haunting and magical...
Review: One of the best books I have ever read and perhaps the most effective embodiment of the holocaust in fiction ever accomplished. Combining magic realism, chassidic folktales and narrative inventiveness beyond anything I've read, this is nothing short of a masterpiece. I eagerly await whatever Joseph Skibell comes out with next. For another inventive read, try WAS by Geoff Ryman.
Rating:
Summary: A Real Turn Off
Review: The book begins with a mass execution of Jews in a Polish village during World War II. Immediately you enter a world of bizarre fantasy that depicts the experience of the book's dead hero Chaim. His spirit returns to his former home only to find it occupied by a greedy and cold hearted Catholic family. The members of this Polish family are so self occupied that they pay little notice of their daughter/sister dying from TB in an upstairs bedroom. Chaim pities the child and befriends her. Then the book takes a sick turn and our hero, who is the ghost of an old man has sex with this young girl. After that I could no longer read this book, into the trash it went. Reading about a Pedophile's sexual encounter with a child is not my idea of entertainment.
Rating:
Summary: The most magical book I've read in a very long time
Review: This book combines magic, surrealism, and religion into a most remarkable story. I highly recommend this book. It may be the best book I have read in years.
Rating:
Summary: Easily one of the best books I have ever read!!!
Review: This book inspires me to become more than I ever thought possible. It is a magical, mystical trip through the life and death of a Jewish grandfather and the hauntings of his afterlife. If this is Mr. Skibell's first novel - can't wait for the next!! Thanks Amazon for introducing me to this author with the essay you sent me ("Our Love Affair With Books").
Rating:
Summary: Compelling...uplifting and beautifully written
Review: This is a surrealistic journey of a deeply wounded soul. Once you get caught up in the drama, and heart-breaking humor, of the journey, you cannot put this book down until the incredible journey's end.
Rating: 
Summary: Reminded me of a book you had to read for school
Review: You know I felt like I was reading a book back in highschool. Lots of things that must have been meaningful but I sure didn't get the symbolisms. I felt like if I went into class tomorrow my wise professor would tell me that black crows always symbolize death, or something to that effect. I do think there were some very creative aspects to this book. It reminded me of a giant dream sequence, at last it was the way my dreams seem to go, people appearing suddenly and things not always being logical but that's the way dreams are. I've studied a lot of the Holocaust, this was an interesting twist, but left me kind of empty toward the end. It was interesting early on but I wasn't on the edge of my seat waiting for the ending. Probably would make a good book for a reading club or a Torah study group.
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