Pardes

The life of Ari Iden has always been governed by strict rules. In the ultra-Orthodox community of Brooklyn, his days are dedicated solely to study and religious rituals. Ari feels very lonely and is only glad when his family moves... to sunny Florida. In the new school, everything is different; Judaic studies and rituals are also taught there, but overall, it is an ordinary and very good school.
Ari quickly integrates into a group of friends, immersing himself in an amazing and previously unknown atmosphere of freedom. His new friends are charismatic, smart, and bold; their lives are not limited by any boundaries. Gradually, Ari transforms from a self-conscious Jewish school student into a person who tries to find his special path in a world of feelings, desires, and temptations. All the characters in David Hope's novel are drawn to Pardes, a mystical garden where a person attains true knowledge, draws closer to God, and to their own essence hidden beneath external layers.
«Pardes» is a profound, meaningful novel about self-discovery, about the pursuit of truth, about love, both all-encompassing and romantic, about the forces that define us: intoxicating relationships of youth, the charm of inherited traditions, or our hidden desires.
David Hope's debut novel is compared to Salinger's book «The Catcher in the Rye», but it can also be placed alongside other very different books — «The Magus» by John Fowles and «The Secret History» by Donna Tartt, books where the search for oneself leads into a labyrinth, whether psychological or philosophical.