A review by vikingwolf
Burned Alive by Souad

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.