thesapphiccelticbookworm's Reviews (2.04k)

Thank you to Netgalley and Transworld Publishers for an early copy of this book.

Suad Aldarra was born and raised in Saudi Arabia. She felt stifled by the sexist, and oppressive regime and  longed to move to Syria where her parents were from and where she spent many happy summers. After finishing school she manages to get into Damascus University, where she revelled in her new-found freedom. 

Then war came and everything changed. Thanks to her degree she was eventually able to move to Ireland on a work visa and later her new husband was able to follow her. But with culture shock, stress of uncertainty about when she could she her family and friends again, the grief for the life and land she had to leave behind, reaching safety didn't end her troubles.

This was an interesting, well written and very accessible book. It was very interesting to see Aldarra's complicated relationship with her family and her try and reconcile her religion and it's place in her new life.

Being Irish myself, I found it fascinating to see the perspective of someone moving her from an very different world, and adjusting to the people, the way of life, the weather and the language (Hiberno-English, as opposed to the English she had previously learned). I couldn't help comparing and contrasting Aldarra's experience with this and my own father's; he moved from another European country to Ireland in the 1970's, so his experience was wildly different.

I found this book very enlightening on an experience I knew little about.

Thank you to Netgalley and Ad Lib Publishers for a copy of this book to review.

Bekhal Mahmod, originally from Iraqi Kurdistan. Due to her family and culture, she and her sisters had a horrifically abusive childhood. She ran away at 15 instead of facing an arranged marriage to her cousin. This act of defiance caused to father to 'lose respect' within the Kurdish community, she became a target of an 'honour killing' and her younger sisters Banaz and Payzee were quickly married off. Banaz later left her abusive husband so her father and uncle arranged her murder. Bekhal became the first woman in British legal history to testify against her family in an honour killing trial. She now lives in the witness protection program and is always looking over her shoulder.

This was not an easy read Bekhal and her sisters' childhood was brutal and oppressive. Her anger at many of her family members and of her misogynistic culture seeps off the page. This made me so anger for Mekhal, for Banaz, for all the women in the world who've gone through this bullshit, and still do.

This is a very important story to get out there. The world needs to hear the true horrors of what life is like for some women in cultures like this.