Rating: 
Summary: Just returned this book.
Review: I read so many positive reviews and profiles of this book that I did something I don't usually do: I bought the book without reading some of it. I agree with the people who've said this work is derivative. I love Bernard Malamud, Isaac Singer, Isaac Babel's work. I find their work joyous and exquisitely written. These stories are pale imitations. I have never before returned a book. I love books, I love to lend them and re-read them even if I don't always agree with them or love them. But this one seemed like fast-food to me. At first you think it's real but then you begin to chew and it's cardboard. Whatever happend to Mel Gussow? He used to be so on-target in his writing. I would never lend this to anyone. Don't waste your time!
Rating: 
Summary: Refreshing look at Orthodox Judiasm
Review: It's about time that a young and spirited writer came up with the freshness and honesty that Mr. Englander lovingly gave us. Controversial for sure--but thank goodness. After all so was Melville's "Moby Dick". Give us more Mr. Englander!
Rating: 
Summary: Derivative
Review: I am at a loss to explain the rapturous reviews which greeted the publication of this book, and which led me to read it. I can only assume that in an age when Grisham and Steele are what most Americans are reading, anything that comes close to literature sends book critics' heads spinning. The only other explanation I can come up with is that most reviewers are not familiar with or have forgotten the works of Singer, Malamud, Babel, Roth and Bellow. Those were original, exquisite writers. Englander's work is highly derivative, pretentious and self-conscious. Many of his stories are not fully realized. Two - the first two - are worthwhile. The collection goes downhill from there, and leaves one with the impression of an inconsistent writer who has not yet found his own voice. The future of Jewish writing lies with original voices like Joseph Skibell (check out his luminous A BLESSING ON THE MOON), Adam Schwartz (he has a wonderful story in the WRITING OUR WAY HOME collection) and Carol Magun (the overlooked CIRCLING EDEN). Here's hoping Englander's next work elevates him to their ranks.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful example of what writing can be.
Review: Englander has an extraordinary gift for the English language. Every sentence was a picture; every story about odd and ordinary people in ironic situations. I hope the subject matter -- mostly observant orthodox Jews -- doesn't turn off the general reader. Anyone who loves the beauty of good writing can't afford to miss this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Spotty
Review: I couldn't agree more with those that say there are a couple of gems and the rest can be lived without. There is much promise here, but the reviews claiming Mr. Englander to be the second coming of Singer or more are premature at best.
Rating:
Summary: Well-written but lacking substance
Review: "For the Relief of Unbearable Urges" is written in a brilliant style comparable to "The Triumph and the Glory" and has its moments, but it just doesn't seem to go anywhere.
Rating:
Summary: Nice try Natan
Review: A book often reaches out to you in two ways. One is the style of writing or the author's selection of words that conjure up images and flow across the paper. The second is the subject, or in the case of Natan Englander's short stories, the subjects he or she is writing about.I give Natan an "A" for form and a "D" for substance. Not that his diverse set of stories are not interesting. But because they reek of a personal bias that at best ridicules and at worse defames the beliefs of a people. His premise seems to be that in orthodox Judaism, many are trying to escape and those that don't or can't can always find a Reb who will provide them with an interpretation that permits them to safely continue in their misguided ways. One turns the pages thinking whether this story actually can be more depressing than the one before it. And it usually is. What happens to the tumblers, the "Santa", the taxi Jew, the wigmaker, the man with the penalty of a visit to a prostitute? One never knows because other than the fatal first story most of his tales don't have endings. An angry young man seems to be trying to convince us that all this religion doesn't matter. He writes well in snatches - the mezuzah with blue paint is a nice touch. But the underlying message seems to be that G_d is nonexistent or else little children wouldn't have had bullets going through their necks in the 1940's nor Israelis being picked up in pieces from the streets in the 1990's.
Rating:
Summary: Wildly Over Rated
Review: This was another book I was given by a friend who said "you gotta read it!" Well, read it I did and I am wondering what all the hype (my friend and the media frenzy) is about. These are pre-digested, tightly edited stories that are so seriously derivative of Isaac Bashevis Singer that it's outrageous! I can only imagine that the reviewers haven't ever read Singer's work.It seems that the appeal here is that they deliver an easily comprehended story. Listen, if you are interested in this kind of writing, read Singer, read Cynthia Ozick, read Saul Bellow and read the real thing, not a clever re-working of earlier, better writing.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent.
Review: Although I have to agree with those reviewers who commented that the endings of many of these stories were somewhat disappointing, and felt incomplete, I nevertheless thought that the collection as a whole was wonderful and would recommend it to anyone. Thus, I give it 5 stars notwithstanding my reservation.
Rating:
Summary: From THE MIAMI HERALD
Review: From THE MIAMI HERALD Reviewed by Susan Miron Twenty-nineyear old Nathan Englander's catchily titled "For the Relief ofUnbearable Urges" is one of the classiest, most assured, impressive literary debuts I've come across in ten years of reviewing books. Delving into the world of Orthodoxy in many of these stories, Englander, now living as an admittedly secular Jew in Jerusalem, recalled in an interview that "religion got a lot more religious" while he was growing up in an Orthodox Jewish community on Long island. The often-hilarious story, "The Gilgul of Park Avenue," features a sudden religious metamorphosis in a New York taxicab. "The Jewish day begins in the calm of evening," it opens, "when it won't shock the system with its arrival. It was then, three stars visible in the Manhattan sky and a new day fallen, that Charles Morton Luger understood he was the bearer of a Jewish soul." The abrupt, manic spiritual transformation of this Protestant Park Avenue financial analyst, a "levelheaded man, not often victim to extremes of mood" into a excited soul yelling to the cabdriver, "Jewish, here in the back!" leads to study sessions with a Brooklyn rebbe, his psychiatrist deeming him mad, and an increasingly baffled, annoyed wife... Englander revels in extreme situations and characters saddled - or blessed - with extreme emotions, frustrations, and faith... Englander will inevitably be compared with the last generation of Jewish-American heavies, particularly Philip Roth. One critic recently likened him to Isaac Bashevis Singer on crack. But the many voices (including Orthodox women's in "The Wig" and "The Last One Way") he has given life to in this collection earn this gifted writer a distinct and distinguished niche of his own.
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