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A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A READ WITH JENNA TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB PICK
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice - A Washington Post 10 Books to Read in March - An Amazon Best Book of the Year - A Marie Claire Best Women's Fiction of 2019 - A USA Today Best Book of the Week - A Washington Book Review Difficult-To-Put-Down Novel - A Refinery 29 Best Books of the Month - A Buzzfeed News 4 Books We Couldn't Put Down Last Month - An Electric Lit 20 Best Debuts of the First Half of 2019 - A The Millions Most Anticipated Books of 2019
"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
In her debut novel Etaf Rum tells 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--a story of culture and honor, secrets and betrayals, love and violence. Set in an America at once foreign to many and staggeringly close at hand, A Woman Is No Man is an intimate glimpse into a controlling and closed cultural world, and a universal tale about family and the ways silence and shame can destroy those we have sworn to protect.
"Where I come from, we've learned to silence ourselves. We've been taught that silence will save us. Where I come from, we keep these stories to ourselves. To tell them to the outside world is unheard of--dangerous, the ultimate shame."
Palestine, 1990. Seventeen-year-old Isra prefers reading books to entertaining the suitors her father has chosen for her. Over the course of a week, the na ve and dreamy girl finds herself quickly betrothed and married, and is soon living in Brooklyn. 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.
Brooklyn, 2008. 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. 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. 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.
But 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.
- Format: Hardcover
- Author: Rum, Etaf
- ISBN: 9780062699763
- Condition: Used
- Dimensions: 9.10 x 1.40
- Number Of Pages: 352
- Publication Year: 2019
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"A part of me hoped that women would be liberated in this country, but you were right, mama, a woman will always be a woman.” #SummerReading
Jennifer N. - 6 years 1 month agoA Woman Is No Man begins as a seemingly Palestinian Little Women. “If Deya was a subject, she thought she would be art--dark, messy, emotional. Nora, the second eldest and her closest companion, would be math--solid, precise, and straightforward...Layla would be science, always curious, always seeking answers, always logical.…If Amal was a subject, she would be religion, centering every conversation around halal and haraam, good and evil. It was Amal who always brought them back to God, rounding them out with a handful of faith.” One of the central themes threaded throughout the novel is about happiness and the question of “What makes you happy?” Deya says, “Nothing made me happy.” Nora’s response is “Freedom” to do whatever she wants. Layla’s replies, “Success...being a doctor or doing something great.” Amal poignantly posits, “Being with you three.” Their rebellious and fiercely independent Aunt Sara says, “I don’t care about being happy...Too often being happy means being passive or playing it safe. There’s no skill required in happiness. No strength of character. Nothing extraordinary. It’s discontent that drives creation the most. Passion, desire, defiance. Revolutions don’t come from a place of happiness. If anything, I think it’s sadness or discontent at least that’s the root of everything beautiful.” “She knew she had to teach them how to love themselves, that this was the only way they had a chance at happiness. Only she didn’t see how they could when the world pressed shame into women like pillows into their face...Courage will get you everywhere, so long as you believe in yourself and what you stand for...You have to find the courage to stand up for yourself, even if you’re standing alone...It’s hard to belong anywhere...if we don’t belong to ourselves first.” I struggled with Deya’s conclusion, the author’s message, “She knew this voice that she had always taken as the absolute truth was actually the very thing that was preventing her from achieving everything she wanted. The voice was the lie and all the things she wanted for herself were the truth, perhaps the most important truth in the world...The fight was worth everything if it meant finally having a voice.” Deya seems to find her “truth” in self first to the exclusion of her grandmother and even her aunt and sisters. Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” Paradoxically, the Bible suggests that putting ourselves last is the key to happiness. "Do nothing from selfish or empty conceit, but with humility of mind... esteem others as more important than yourself. Don't look out just for your own interests, but also for the needs of others. Have this attitude in you which was also in Christ Jesus...He emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant, made in the likeness of men...He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Philippians 2). Again the Bible tells us that “anyone who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” As a believer I struggled to reconcile Isra’s character with her tragic ending. Isra adheres to both the Islamic and Christian tenets of faith: she obeys her mother and father; she submits to her husband. And instead of being ultimately rewarded, Isra is remanded again and again with a rainbow of abuse--physically, verbal, emotional, and sexual--her body, a palette of black, blue, and bloody hues. On this Islam and Christianity agree: “Madness is derived from the jinn, an evil spirit inside you. Therapy and medicine can’t fix that.” Our depression and anxiety, suicides and homicides, is rooted in the soil of sin. While medicine and psychology are tools, the Lord is the ultimate Landscaper; only He can weed the garden of our souls and set us free. #SummerReading