Hurts Like a Jew­ish Moth­er is a quirky, humor­ous abecedar­i­an adult pic­ture book which offers a lov­ing poke at Jew­ish expe­ri­ences. A par­o­dy of Edward Gorey’s The Gash­ly­crumb Tinies, the book trans­ports the read­er through the alphabet/​aleph bet as it describes the adven­tures of 26 female char­ac­ters in com­i­cal rhyming cou­plets. Each char­ac­ter meets an unex­pect­ed fate while try­ing to adhere to Jew­ish tra­di­tion in a mod­ern set­ting. The book pairs each line of text with an inven­tive and wacky illus­tra­tion that brings the absur­di­ty of the text to life. The pro­tag­o­nists expe­ri­ence a fun­ny spin on the chal­lenges of cel­e­brat­ing Jew­ish hol­i­days (from Passover to Purim), par­tic­i­pat­ing in mile­stones (bat mitz­vah and bris), and being obser­vant (keep­ing kosher and cel­e­brat­ing Shab­bat). The book cov­ers the entire Jew­ish life­cy­cle and offers sit­u­a­tions which will res­onate with a wide range of (Jew­ish) readers.