A review by mellabella
Burned Alive by Souad

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.