Imagine a time filled with hormone-fueled crushes, make-or-break party themes, and drama-filled sleepovers. The Netflix hit comedy, “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” immerses the audience in a period brimming with tween angst and Torah portions. Produced by Adam Sandler, the film is based on the celebrated novel “You Are SO Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah!” (Hyperion, 2005) by Amanda Stern (under the pseudonym Fiona Rosenbloom). For Stern, channeling her inner middle school student was relatively easy.
“I oddly can very easily drop back into that time period in my own life and into that sort of voice of my thirteen-year-old self and my friends at thirteen,” explained Stern over the phone. “I think that I drew on my humor as a kid. I drew on aspects of myself and aspects of the friends I had when I was that age.”
Stern was raised in a secular Ashkenazi home in New York as the youngest of six children. She did not have a bat mitzvah, and all holidays were essentially stripped of spiritual meaning.
“You don’t know what you’re missing when you don’t have it,” observed Stern. “It wasn’t until later on in my life when I realized how much I missed out on.”
As it turned out, Stern was a descendant of the Vilna Gaon, one of the most influential Lithuanian rabbis of Jewish history. When an editor from Alloy Entertainment approached Stern to write a book for young adults about a bat mitzvah, Stern was excited by the challenge.
“It’s an interesting framework when you grow up without learning about your own ethnicity, your own religious background,” said Stern. “I feel like in some ways not having that background made me more interested and open to learning about it than I might have been otherwise.”
Stern created a delightful coming-of-age story about the fictional Stacy Friedman (played by Adam Sandler’s youngest daughter, Sadie, in the 2023 film adaptation) preparing for her bat mitzvah in upstate New York. Stacy’s rabbi instructs her to complete three mitzvahs, or good deeds, in time for the Jewish ritual. The spunky young protagonist, determined to set her single mother up on a date, creates a fake profile on JDate. Stacy then enlists the help of an Italian exchange student to make her precocious younger brother less awkward.
Stacy, whose private letters to G-d are interspersed throughout the book, is reminiscent of the beloved tween heroine from “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret” by Judy Blume.
“Judy Blume was my childhood,” said Stern. “It was my unconscious tip of the hat to Judy Blume, who I adore.”
In addition to reading Judy Blume novels, Stern spent her childhood writing plays she produced, directed, and starred in. She went on to study film theory at the University of Rochester. By her twenties, Stern was determined to be a published author.
“Another writer—I can’t remember who—told me very early on that the key to being a successful writer is to just keep going,” recalled Stern. “No one who gave up ever made their mark. I guess in my head, since my twenties … if you really want something, you go and get it. Even if you can’t get it, you just keep trying. That’s sort of what I’ve done my entire career. I’ve just never stopped.”
Although her middle school days are far behind, Stern, who authored the “Frankly, Frannie” middle grade series (as A.J. Stern), continues to appeal to young readers. She currently spends her days writing novels and her mental health newsletter, “How to Live.” The weekly newsletter boasts nearly twenty thousand subscribers. Stern’s 2018 memoir, “Little Panic: Dispatches from an Anxious Life,” details her childhood living with an anxiety disorder.
“The reason that I write fiction is to delve into the psychology of the human being,” noted Stern. In “You Are SO Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah!” Stern delves into the unique psyche of a twelve-year-old girl faced with pubescent trials and tribulations.
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