Despite the title Crossing California, it is not about California. It's about three Jewish families in Chicago during the Iranian hostage crisis (which is used as a timeline for the book, but has very little to do with the plot itself).
I really enjoyed this book because of its realism. Although all the characters go through major life changes as the story progresses, they have also gone through major changes before the beginning of the book, and more major changes are on their way after the end of the book. It isn't some magical year where all the drama in everyone's life occurs and then resolves itself.
The characters are complex - they all have some flaws, and they all have some elements that make them sympathetic. All the characters are sort of making up life as they go along - trying to be the person they want other people to think they are, even though they're not quite sure what they're doing. Although the lives of the three key families are intertwined, they aren't thoroughly enmeshed like a happy little sitcom cast; it's just the level of connection that comes from growing up in the same neighbourhood and belonging to the same temple.
There's just one thing that made this book feel less than perfectly realistic to me, and that's the fact that all the teenage characters (who range in age from 13-17) can leave their homes and wander the streets of Chicago in the middle of the night and their parents don't care. And then there's the unfortunate plot device where a single father has sex with his girlfriend in the one-bedroom apartment he shares with his two daughters, instead of in the house she has all to herself just a couple of blocks away. These things did take away from it, but on the whole it's a beautifully crafted book and refreshing in its realism.
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