Braff, Joshua. The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2004. 259 pp. ISBN 1-56512-420-0 $22.95 A/YA

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You don’t need to be Jewish or to have grown up in the late 70’s / early 80’s to appreciate this coming-of-age tale by New Jersey Braff. Jacob Green, the middle boy child in a kosher family, has a verbally abusive narcissistic father who is more like a fifth child than a dad, throwing temper tantrums over his son’s learning disability.