This debut novel by a Palestinian-American voice takes us inside the lives of a conservative Arab family living in America. In Brooklyn, eighteen-year-old Deya is starting to meet with suitors. Though she doesn’t want to get married, her grandparents give her no choice. History is repeating itself: Deya’s mother, Isra, also had no choice when she left Palestine as a teenager to marry Adam. Though Deya was raised to believe her parents died in a car accident, a secret note from a mysterious, yet familiar-looking woman makes Deya question everything she was told about her past. As the narrative alternates between the lives of Deya and Isra, she begins to understand the dark, complex secrets behind her community.
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This book gave insight into what it’s like for women in the Arab American community. It goes back and forth between a mother who immigrated to Palestine for an arranged marriage and her daughter who struggles between Islamic and American ideals. All in all a good read.
0This multigenerational story taps into the expectations if society on Arab women and the struggle of immigrating to a place so so culturally different from where one comes from.
Rum beautifully weaves the importance of diversity in voices in literature and the power of speaking one’s truth to the world with confidence.
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