This is a beautiful story about the pressure of culture and religious tradition throughout the generations. While the story focuses on the expectations of being a Palestinian woman, we also learn a lot about what it is to be a Palestinan man. Neither gender has it easy with all of the cultural pressure to appear perfect to their contemporaries. Inside each family, generation after generation the parents continue the abuses that they experienced with their own children.
In this story we get a close look at one family through the eyes of two generations. Deya is living in current times, questioning the need for her to find a suitor before she completes high school and why she can’t go to college. Raised by her grandparents after her parent’s death, she learns about her mother and her aunt as she begins to question just why she needs to follow these familial traditions. The revelations of what really happened in this family will break your heart.
It’s important these days that stories of the oppression of women and domestic abuse are able to be seen; that the cycle of generational trauma is broken. This is just one snapshot of one fictional family within a much larger culture, it’s important to remember that but to value the strength it takes to bring a story like this to light. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
What’s the last book you read set in a country other than your own?
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