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A review by misspalah
The Pact We Made by Layla AlAmmar
4.0
She furrowed her brows. It's a party. Parents never approve of that, but I mean, she's an adult.' I had no response, and she turned away to spin more circles and send little waves across the pool. How could I explain to her that in our culture a daughter is not thought an adult until she's married and no longer in her father's care? That until then we just played at being adults - going to work, hitting the gym, watching our money - but remained impotent when it came to making any real decisions about our lives. I bet Kim had difficulty fathoming that a thirty-year-old had to ask permission to leave the country, or that she had to hide her male friends from her parents because good girls' didn't socialize with men. My parents had no idea who Yousef was; in the ten years I'd known him, as a friend, then as a colleague, they'd never met him nor heard me so much as mention his name. How could I make her see the myriad paradoxes in our culture? That while a few families were like Monas, who'd actually encouraged her to get a degree abroad and had been disappointed that shed chosen to stay with us, most of them were like mine and Zaina's, who thought we shouldn't do anything without considering what society might think of it first. Our lives were these elaborate plays, and we all wore masks. There was a life that people saw, where you were respectable and did all the right things, a life where people thought highly of you and you were firmly set on a predictable trajectory. But there was another life as well, one inside you, a life where you thought things you were too ashamed to say out loud, where you lied to people and you lied to yourself. It sometimes felt like I had put my past in a hole and spent my time shoveling dirt into it, but like some cheap horror movie, it kept trying to claw its way out.
- The Pact We Made by Layla Alammar
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Sexual Assault Perpetrators Are Usually Family Members And Family Friends and that’s a fact that we cannot deny. Statistics and research has proven it over and over again. ‘The Pact We Made’ brought us readers into a reality of what it’s like being SA’d by family members and rather than bringing the perpetrator to justice, the victim’s family wishes it to keep silent for honor and family’s reputation is at stake. Dahlia were betrayed twice, once when she was raped by Omar uncle (her mom’s cousin) and second, when she’s got to know that her parents know Uncle Omar’s Nature but still insisting on doing the whole extended family vacation. Dahlia lived with her trauma - feeding it to monsters that lived around her. She channeled this obsession into her drawings and arts. I do have to apologise that some of these artistic references mentioned in the book went over my head as i am not familiar with it at all. I don’t have to highlight how ‘virginity’ is being placed as part of family’s honour / reputation but we all know at some parts of the world , its a cultural norm and how society control women indirectly. Dahlia is also trapped in this notion as her parents (especially her mother) refused to acknowledge the crime and keep on insisting that Dahlia to get married. She kept on pushing matches for an arranged marriage despite Dahlia passed 30 years old (which again for some culture , it’s considered old already). I have such high hope for Bu Faisal to be her mentor / second father as her real father failed her but it was turned into disappointment when he suggested Dahlia to be his second wife in a subtle manner. Yousef proposed to her but Dahlia knew deep down that they better stayed as friends. On the title itself, The Pact we made was hinting on the Pact that Dahlia has forged with Zaina and Mona - on marriage age and basically sticking together through thick and thin. But all’s left are words and they have moved on with their life leaving her dealt with her own pain and tragedy. I am not sure Mona and Zaina is the good indicator of best friend (at least not for me). This will be by far one of the memorable books i’ve read in 2023 - although we are only at the second month of the year. It was haunting and radically lyrical at the same time. Being an unmarried muslim woman, i relate so hard with Dahlia. Coming from a conservative society whereby Patriarchal values were enforced upon, Dahlia’s thoughts reflected what i have had in mine for so long. I was not ready to end this book as i finished this in one day but i am pretty sure once i parted with the book, Dahlia’s word echoed through me and this is one of them : “That his parents hounded him about marriage struck me as impossible. He was young; he had plenty of time for all that. More than that, he was a man. Unlike me, his eligibility didn't plummet further each year. If anything, he would become more desirable as more and more women remained single for longer. Why were they, our parents, so eager to push our lives forward? Why were they so keen to see the next phases of our lives start? What if there was no next phase? Certainly there were people - even here, where being alone struck such fear into the chest - who never found anyone to share their lives. Surrounded as we were by the divorced and cheated on and jilted, all slinking back to the family home, often with multiple children in tow, was it even worth it? Did it not make more sense to just give up on the whole enterprise?”. This would have been 5 stars read if its not for the ending. I understand why she choose Bu Faisal but he is a married man and i can’t stand infidelity. Polygamy is allowed in Islam but not in my worldview and certainly not in a way i wanted Dahlia to reclaim herself and retain her freedom.
- The Pact We Made by Layla Alammar
.
.
Sexual Assault Perpetrators Are Usually Family Members And Family Friends and that’s a fact that we cannot deny. Statistics and research has proven it over and over again. ‘The Pact We Made’ brought us readers into a reality of what it’s like being SA’d by family members and rather than bringing the perpetrator to justice, the victim’s family wishes it to keep silent for honor and family’s reputation is at stake. Dahlia were betrayed twice, once when she was raped by Omar uncle (her mom’s cousin) and second, when she’s got to know that her parents know Uncle Omar’s Nature but still insisting on doing the whole extended family vacation. Dahlia lived with her trauma - feeding it to monsters that lived around her. She channeled this obsession into her drawings and arts. I do have to apologise that some of these artistic references mentioned in the book went over my head as i am not familiar with it at all. I don’t have to highlight how ‘virginity’ is being placed as part of family’s honour / reputation but we all know at some parts of the world , its a cultural norm and how society control women indirectly. Dahlia is also trapped in this notion as her parents (especially her mother) refused to acknowledge the crime and keep on insisting that Dahlia to get married. She kept on pushing matches for an arranged marriage despite Dahlia passed 30 years old (which again for some culture , it’s considered old already). I have such high hope for Bu Faisal to be her mentor / second father as her real father failed her but it was turned into disappointment when he suggested Dahlia to be his second wife in a subtle manner. Yousef proposed to her but Dahlia knew deep down that they better stayed as friends. On the title itself, The Pact we made was hinting on the Pact that Dahlia has forged with Zaina and Mona - on marriage age and basically sticking together through thick and thin. But all’s left are words and they have moved on with their life leaving her dealt with her own pain and tragedy. I am not sure Mona and Zaina is the good indicator of best friend (at least not for me). This will be by far one of the memorable books i’ve read in 2023 - although we are only at the second month of the year. It was haunting and radically lyrical at the same time. Being an unmarried muslim woman, i relate so hard with Dahlia. Coming from a conservative society whereby Patriarchal values were enforced upon, Dahlia’s thoughts reflected what i have had in mine for so long. I was not ready to end this book as i finished this in one day but i am pretty sure once i parted with the book, Dahlia’s word echoed through me and this is one of them : “That his parents hounded him about marriage struck me as impossible. He was young; he had plenty of time for all that. More than that, he was a man. Unlike me, his eligibility didn't plummet further each year. If anything, he would become more desirable as more and more women remained single for longer. Why were they, our parents, so eager to push our lives forward? Why were they so keen to see the next phases of our lives start? What if there was no next phase? Certainly there were people - even here, where being alone struck such fear into the chest - who never found anyone to share their lives. Surrounded as we were by the divorced and cheated on and jilted, all slinking back to the family home, often with multiple children in tow, was it even worth it? Did it not make more sense to just give up on the whole enterprise?”. This would have been 5 stars read if its not for the ending. I understand why she choose Bu Faisal but he is a married man and i can’t stand infidelity. Polygamy is allowed in Islam but not in my worldview and certainly not in a way i wanted Dahlia to reclaim herself and retain her freedom.