In a review for The Jerusalem Post, Abigail Klein Leichman writes: The way Kylie Ora Lobell writes about her childhood in Baltimore, Maryland, in her book Choosing to Be Chosen: From Being an Atheist Non-Jew to Becoming an Orthodox Jew could initially describe the childhood of countless Americans.
There was sadness and bewilderment over her parents’ divorce, bullying at school, confusion about her Catholic maternal grandmother’s fire-and-brimstone beliefs, grief over her loving paternal grandmother’s death, poor family communication, and teen years scarred by loneliness, anxiety, insecurity, suicidal thoughts, and giving up on a God she never felt was looking out for her.
However, though the circumstances are all too typical, the resolution is unusual. She finds the God she didn’t know she was searching for within a Judaism she didn’t know existed.