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apleiades17's review against another edition
5.0
"Încerc să reflectez şi îmi dau seama că, dacă mi s-ar fi spus că am ochi albaştri, fără a-mi da o oglindă, aş fi crezut toată viaţa că am ochii albaştri. Oglinda reprezintă cultura, educaţia cunoaşterea de sine însuşi şi a altora."
mellabella's review
3.0
I'm reading the reviews below. Seeing that this book may not be entirely true isn't surprising. Maybe I should rate it as fiction? Some parts could be what someone who was the victim of such a heinous crime would be thinking or feeling. Then again, I don't know. The mind represses certain things, OK. But in this case it made her seem less credible. She was talking about things as if she saw them in her mind, or having visions. Her sister (whose name she couldn't remember?)was allegedly, maybe strangled by her brother with a phone cord. Nothing about what and how she remembered something so horrific made you think it actually happened. If I knew that I would be reading about half truths and made up memories I probably would have thought twice about reading it. But anyway however truthful the tale, it was a sad story of a teenage girl who was burned by her brother in law for having a crush/falling in love with a neighbor. Being so naive, she believed that he would still speak to her father about marrying her. Even after taking her virginity and continuing to have sex with her KNOWING it could result in her death.Her naivety was not her fault as she wasn't allowed typical teenage freedoms or any freedoms at all. If she wasn't working for the family, she was inside. The biggest thrill would be going to the market. Her father was horribly abusive to everyone in the family.It seemed to be commonly excepted throughout the small village she lived in. So after she's burned and delivers her baby, she is helped by a European aid worker. From this point of the book forward seems to be the only part that could be slightly true... She starts anew life. Her son is adopted, she starts working. It seemed a little odd that she didn't learn to write. It was entertaining. But for someone to take a crime that happens to so many innocent women in so many different ways,fictionalize it but sell it as non fiction seems blatantly disrespectful.
karenleagermain's review
4.0
It made me feel really lucky to live in a society, where I feel safe and protected. It's hard to even imagine what Souad went through and how far she has come in her life.
vikingwolf's review
3.0
Souad hears of a possible arranged marriage to a neighbour and after spying on him, finds him attractive enough to start contact with. As she falls in love with him she reluctantly agrees to have sex with him and falls pregnant, to the disgust and shame of her family. They arrange to have her killed by covering her in petrol and setting her on fire and only the intervention of other women saves her life. But a future of agony and fear await her as her family still want her to die, and her only hope is to be rescued by foreign charity workers.
This was a shocking story of the cruelty that families inflict on daughters that dare to disobey them and their traditions. I say it is shocking but actually I have read so many stories like this that I feel I am becoming hardened to their content. The agony of her injuries I can't even imagine but the betrayal of her family must have hurt just as much inside. It was her 'boyfriend' that made me the angriest in this book for persuading her that he intended to ask for her hand in order to get the sex he wanted, knowing that she would be shamed and shunned for not being a virgin for her future husband. She was duped and this piece of filth then disappeared on hearing she was pregnant, leaving her to that terrible fate.
A book that makes you sad and mad, but you just have to keep reading it.
This was a shocking story of the cruelty that families inflict on daughters that dare to disobey them and their traditions. I say it is shocking but actually I have read so many stories like this that I feel I am becoming hardened to their content. The agony of her injuries I can't even imagine but the betrayal of her family must have hurt just as much inside. It was her 'boyfriend' that made me the angriest in this book for persuading her that he intended to ask for her hand in order to get the sex he wanted, knowing that she would be shamed and shunned for not being a virgin for her future husband. She was duped and this piece of filth then disappeared on hearing she was pregnant, leaving her to that terrible fate.
A book that makes you sad and mad, but you just have to keep reading it.
neander's review
5.0
Absolutely horrifying and blunt, as well as very educational on femicide, infanticide, shame killings, the foster system, and many more. I hope the author is healing well
ekaramanov's review
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Medical trauma, Child death, Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, Rape, and Sexual assault
shonaningyo's review
4.0
Does this ever happen to you?
You're in a lull in time, bored, just thinking. And then your brain for no other reason than to be weird shoots a random memory or thought in your head. These little snippets are usually things like book or movie synopses.
It always happens to me. As an afterthought I was thinking about a book I read a few years ago about a young girl in the Middle East who was doused in kerosene and set on fire to protect her family's "honor".
So the day I am writing this, I was looking through my school library shelves and I found this! As soon as I saw the spine I was like, "I FOUND YOU!"
...
Okay onto the story.
This was a true account of the harsh, cruel, and totally UNFAIR treatment of women in certain societies. This takes place in Palestine, apparently. I always had the idea it was in a remote village in Afghanistan or something.. Does that make me ignorant? I don't care if it does.
Women in the Middle East like in Palestine--and quite a few cultures in Africa-- are considered less than a second class citizen. The modesty idea is taken to the extreme; women must work, work, work, work, work! "Don't take your eyes off the ground, you whore!" "Stop looking at that dude, you skank!" "Why can't you milk 300 goats in 20 minutes, you looseless wench?!" Basically that is the whole idea.
...
EDIT:
I've been seeing reviews that this book is apparently not a real memoir. Despite that revelation, I will maintain my score because I still thoroughly enjoyed it. Just because this may be fake does not mean that women are still not treated in this way and that honor killings aren't an issue; they still are.
You're in a lull in time, bored, just thinking. And then your brain for no other reason than to be weird shoots a random memory or thought in your head. These little snippets are usually things like book or movie synopses.
It always happens to me. As an afterthought I was thinking about a book I read a few years ago about a young girl in the Middle East who was doused in kerosene and set on fire to protect her family's "honor".
So the day I am writing this, I was looking through my school library shelves and I found this! As soon as I saw the spine I was like, "I FOUND YOU!"
...
Okay onto the story.
This was a true account of the harsh, cruel, and totally UNFAIR treatment of women in certain societies. This takes place in Palestine, apparently. I always had the idea it was in a remote village in Afghanistan or something.. Does that make me ignorant? I don't care if it does.
Women in the Middle East like in Palestine--and quite a few cultures in Africa-- are considered less than a second class citizen. The modesty idea is taken to the extreme; women must work, work, work, work, work! "Don't take your eyes off the ground, you whore!" "Stop looking at that dude, you skank!" "Why can't you milk 300 goats in 20 minutes, you looseless wench?!" Basically that is the whole idea.
...
EDIT:
I've been seeing reviews that this book is apparently not a real memoir. Despite that revelation, I will maintain my score because I still thoroughly enjoyed it. Just because this may be fake does not mean that women are still not treated in this way and that honor killings aren't an issue; they still are.