A review by littletaiko
The Pearl That Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi

3.0

Rahima is a young girl living in Afghanistan in 2007. Her family is struggling to make ends meet and her father has forbidden Rahima and her sisters from attending school. Her mother decides to try an old custom of passing one of the girls off as a boy. Rahima's great-aunt, Shekiba, had done something similar about 100 years ago and her story is passed along to Rahima from one of her aunts. The book alternates between the two women's stories and the consequences from the decision to pass as a male. I ultimately enjoyed the book but found it really hard to get into in the beginning as the stories kept alternating too quickly. It was challenging to get any sort of interest in either story for a bit but eventually their stories started to resonate.