But her grandmother is firm on the matter: The only way to secure a worthy future for Deya is through marriage to the right man.īut fate has a will of its own, and soon, Deya will find herself on an unexpected path that leads her to shocking truths about her family - knowledge that will force her to question everything she thought she knew about her parents, the past, and her own future. Deya can’t help but wonder if her options would have been different had her parents survived the car crash that killed them when Deya was only eight. 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 naive 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. Three generations of Palestinian-American women living in Brooklyn are torn between individual desire and the strict mores of Arab culture in this powerful debut - a heart-wrenching story of love, intrigue, courage, and betrayal that will resonate with women from all backgrounds, giving voice to the silenced and agency to the oppressed.

Novel a woman is no man