City of Laughter Review: Is It Worth Reading?

Verdict: A gorgeously written queer Jewish family novel that follows four generations of women and the folklore that haunts them, held back by slow, meandering pacing and a structure that loses a lot of readers.

Best for: Literary readers who love Jewish folklore, multigenerational family sagas and dreamlike prose, and who don’t need a strong plot or a central romance.

Heat level: ★★☆☆☆ (2/5: desire runs through the generations, but this is literary fiction, not a steamy read)

Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.4/5: a 3.65 Goodreads average across about 1,300 ratings, with pacing the main complaint)

Tropes: Multigenerational saga, family secrets, Jewish folklore, heartbreak and recovery, return to the old country, mothers and daughters, spirits and possession, queer self-discovery.

City of Laughter is Temim Fruchter’s 2024 debut literary novel, and it follows Shiva Margolin, a queer femme folklorist reeling from a breakup, as she digs into the women of her family, back to her great-grandmother Mira in the Polish town of Ropshitz, a place once known for its jesters.

It holds 3.65 across about 1,300 Goodreads ratings, the New York Times reviewed it on release, and its UK edition was longlisted for the 2026 Wingate Literary Prize. Readers almost all agree the prose is beautiful. They disagree about whether the book holds together, and that’s the thing to weigh before you start.

What Is City of Laughter About?

This is a multigenerational literary novel steeped in Jewish folklore. Shiva studies S. Ansky, the writer and ethnographer behind The Dybbuk, and the book borrows that world: jesters, spirits, possession and stories passed from mother to daughter. It moves between present-day New York and Poland, and back through the lives of Shiva’s mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.

Shiva is grieving her father, nursing a broken heart after her girlfriend Dani leaves, and trying to understand a family that never talks about anything. Her mother is distant and religious in her own way. The women before her were all, in one way or another, treated as if something was wrong with them. The novel asks what that legacy did to each of them, and what Shiva can do with it.

What Makes This Queer Jewish Family Novel Work

The prose: The most praised thing by far. Readers call it gorgeous, dreamlike and full of sentences worth highlighting.
The folklore: Readers love the interpretation of Jewish folktales and the jesters of Ropshitz.
Generations of women: The thread linking four generations, each shaped by the trauma of the one before, is the emotional core.
Atmosphere: Readers describe it as mysterious and compelling, with spirits that may or may not be real.
Queer Jewish identity: Readers who are both queer and Jewish say it felt written for them.

Book Synopsis

Shiva Margolin’s life has just fallen apart. Her father has died, her girlfriend Dani has left, and the academic work she loves, studying Jewish folklore and the ethnographer S. Ansky, isn’t enough to keep her steady. She’s a queer femme in New York who can’t stop thinking about the women she came from.

Those women didn’t talk much. Her mother, Syl, keeps her feelings sealed away. Before her came Shiva’s grandmother, and before her, Mira, who lived in Ropshitz, a town in Poland famous for its jesters, a place that existed somewhere between laughter and grief. Each of them was told, one way or another, that what she felt made her strange, maybe even possessed.

As Shiva pieces together their stories, the book slides between her present and their pasts, and between the real and the uncanny. Eventually she decides she has to go to Poland and see what’s left. The question is whether understanding the women before her will help her find a way to live, laugh and love on her own terms.

My Review

The best thing about City of Laughter is the writing. Fruchter’s sentences are lush and strange, and readers who loved it talk about the prose before anything else. The idea of a town of jesters as a family’s origin, and of laughter as a way of carrying grief, gives the book a distinctive, haunting center.

The second strength is the way it uses folklore. Possession, spirits and old tales become a language for women who couldn’t say what they felt, especially about desire. Readers who share the background say the book captures something real about queer Jewish inheritance.

Where it struggles is momentum, and that’s the complaint most readers raise. Several say it meanders, and one low-star reviewer asked why it takes 200 pages for Shiva to get to Poland. The structure is the second issue: moving between generations and between the real and the supernatural, some readers lost track of who was who and what actually happened. A 4-star reader admitted they couldn’t summarize the plot afterward. A few found Shiva hard to like, and one 3-star reviewer thought another editing pass would have helped. One 2-star reader also felt the generational storylines didn’t deliver on their bold idea.

The expectation to reset is genre. It’s on our list of sapphic books because Shiva is queer and her heartbreak drives the story, but this isn’t a romance. If you want a love story, look elsewhere. If you want a dreamy family saga, settle in.

My honest note: A beautifully written book that asks for a lot of patience. If you love lyrical literary fiction and Jewish folklore, read it, and if you need a clear plot, sample the first chapters before committing to 400 pages.

Element	In City of Laughter
Central relationship	Shiva and the women of her family, with her breakup from Dani as the trigger
Core tropes	Multigenerational saga, family secrets, Jewish folklore, heartbreak, return to Poland
Setting	Present-day New York and Poland, with chapters in the family’s past
Heat level	2/5: desire present, not explicit by reader reports
Series	Standalone, with an open, literary ending
Content notes	Death of a parent, grief, generational trauma, repression of women, spirit possession themes

How Spicy Is City of Laughter?

Not very. Romance.io doesn’t list it. Desire is one of the book’s big themes, across all four generations, and one reviewer described the generational premise as sexy and weird in concept, but no reviewer we read describes explicit scenes. The 2/5 reflects a book that’s about desire more than one that dwells on sex.

The heavier material is emotional. Grief, family secrets and the long effects of repression run through every storyline. For other literary sapphic novels about faith and family, Disobedience is also set in a Jewish world at 2/5, and Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion sits at 1/5.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you love lyrical, dreamlike prose, you’re drawn to Jewish folklore and history, you enjoy multigenerational family sagas, and you’re happy with a slow, atmospheric read.

You may want to skip it if: you need a clear plot, shifting timelines confuse you, you want a romance, or a long, slow first half will make you quit.

In short: beautiful sentences in search of a faster story.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (October 2026)

This was a well-covered literary debut. Grove Press published it in the US in January 2024, the New York Times reviewed it that month, and the UK edition from Dialogue Books was later longlisted for the 2026 Wingate Literary Prize. Electric Literature included it in a roundup of queer Jewish books with folklore. We didn’t find a BookTok or Reddit conversation. The Dreamscape audiobook is narrated by Mara Wilson and runs about 13 hours and 40 minutes. On Amazon the UK Kindle edition holds 3.6 stars across 36 ratings.

Prefer audio? Listen to City of Laughter on Libro.fm, the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The prose first. “Gorgeous,” “dreamlike” and “beautiful” are the recurring words, and several readers say they highlighted constantly. Then the folklore, especially the jesters of Ropshitz and the spirits that move through the family. Third is the portrait of four generations of women, each shaped by the trauma of the last.

What readers argue about and complain about: Pacing, above everything. “Meandering” comes up a lot, and the slow road to Poland is a specific sore point. Second: structure. Readers lose track across generations and between what’s real and what’s supernatural. Third: Shiva, who gets on some readers’ nerves. A few also say it needed tighter editing. The real split is whether the dreamy, drifting style is the point or the problem. Fans say the beauty of the language carried them. Detractors say it never came together.

The standalone question worth asking first: It’s Fruchter’s debut and a standalone. There’s no follow-up yet.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is City of Laughter a romance?

No. Shiva is queer and her breakup with her girlfriend Dani sets the story in motion, but it’s a literary family saga about Jewish folklore and generations of women.

What is City of Laughter about?

A queer folklorist, Shiva Margolin, investigates four generations of the women in her family, back to her great-grandmother in the Polish town of Ropshitz, known for its jesters.

Is City of Laughter slow?

Yes, for many readers. The most common complaint is meandering pacing, and some readers note it takes a long time for Shiva to travel to Poland.

Who narrates the City of Laughter audiobook?

Mara Wilson narrates the Dreamscape edition, which runs about 13 hours and 40 minutes.

Has City of Laughter won any awards?

Its UK edition was longlisted for the 2026 Wingate Literary Prize.

If You Loved City of Laughter, Read These Next

For another novel about queer women inside a Jewish community, Disobedience is set in Orthodox London. For a lyrical, fragmented self-portrait shaped by faith, try The Last One. And for a queer woman haunted by her mother’s voice, You Exist Too Much is darker and sharper. Find more on the Jewish sapphic books page and in our Book Reviews.

The Bottom Line

City of Laughter wants to trace how the women of one family carried grief, desire and laughter across a century. The prose, the folklore and the generational thread work. The meandering pace, the confusing structure and a sometimes grating narrator don’t work for everyone. If you love lyrical literary fiction, it’s worth your patience. Check City of Laughter on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, City of Laughter ranks as a lyrical, ambitious queer Jewish family saga. It’s beautiful at the sentence level, held back by pacing and structure. Read it for the language and the folklore rather than for plot or romance.