Eighteen-year-old Deya, Isra’s oldest daughter, must meet with potential husbands at her grandmother Fareeda’s insistence, though her only desire is to go to college. There Isra struggles to adapt to the expectations of her oppressive mother-in-law Fareeda and strange new husband Adam, a pressure that intensifies as she begins to have children-four daughters instead of the sons Fareeda tells Isra she must bear.īrooklyn, 2008. Over the course of a week, the naïve and dreamy girl finds herself quickly betrothed and married, and is soon living in Brooklyn. Seventeen-year-old Isra prefers reading books to entertaining the suitors her father has chosen for her.

To tell them to the outside world is unheard of- dangerous, the ultimate shame.”

Where I come from, we keep these stories to ourselves. We’ve been taught that silence will save us. 'Where I come from, we’ve learned to silence ourselves. The New York Times bestseller and Read with Jenna TODAY SHOW Book Club pick telling the story of three generations of Palestinian-American women struggling to express their individual desires within the confines of their Arab culture in the wake of shocking intimate violence in their community. “Garnering justified comparisons to Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns. Etaf Rum’s debut novel is a must-read about women mustering up the bravery to follow their inner voice.” - Refinery 29 A The Millions Most Anticipated Books of 2019.An Electric Lit 20 Best Debuts of the First Half of 2019.A New Arab Best Books by Arab Authors.A Buzzfeed News 4 Books We Couldn't Put Down Last Month.A Washington Book Review Difficult-To-Put-Down Novel.A Washington Post 10 Books to Read in March.A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.A PopSugar Best Book of the Year All Written By Females.A Marie Claire Best Women's Fiction of the Year.A Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist for Best Fiction and Best Debut

Novel a woman is no man