Scan barcode
A review by jacki_f
The Pact We Made by Layla AlAmmar
4.0
If one of the reasons that you read is to understand the experiences of people living in different countries from you, this is a good choice. It's set in Kuwait and it's about the life of a 30 year old single woman.
I knew very little about Kuwait before reading this but it sounds like a mini Dubai. Despite bordering Iraq and Saudi Arabia, it's a place where women enjoy considerable freedoms. They can work, they can drive themselves around, they can dress in short skirts or tops that slip off the shoulder, they can mix with members of the opposite sex. But at the same time there is an expectation that they will marry and have children.
Dahlia is 30 and still unmarried. Her parents, especially her mother, are increasingly anxious about this situation. Both her close female friends married in their mid 20s - marriages that are not unhappy but still far from idyllic. Dahlia's resistance to marriage initially seems like a determination to hold out for love but gradually we learn that there is trauma in her past.
This is an easy read and an interesting story, but it's also somewhat repetitive (so many conversations with her mother telling her she must get married and Dahlia saying she doesn't want to). And the ending left me feeling uncomfortable - was that really the best decision she could have made?
I knew very little about Kuwait before reading this but it sounds like a mini Dubai. Despite bordering Iraq and Saudi Arabia, it's a place where women enjoy considerable freedoms. They can work, they can drive themselves around, they can dress in short skirts or tops that slip off the shoulder, they can mix with members of the opposite sex. But at the same time there is an expectation that they will marry and have children.
Dahlia is 30 and still unmarried. Her parents, especially her mother, are increasingly anxious about this situation. Both her close female friends married in their mid 20s - marriages that are not unhappy but still far from idyllic. Dahlia's resistance to marriage initially seems like a determination to hold out for love but gradually we learn that there is trauma in her past.
This is an easy read and an interesting story, but it's also somewhat repetitive (so many conversations with her mother telling her she must get married and Dahlia saying she doesn't want to). And the ending left me feeling uncomfortable - was that really the best decision she could have made?