Rating: 
Summary: Awesome Read!
Review: Every woman should read this book. It makes me happy I'm an American and reminds me not to take anything for granted. While the story is very sad, it leaves room for hope. While some people may not believe it is true, I'm sure it is. No one could fabicate a tale like this. And men bound their women to silence so they can keep abusing them. Even though the ending is sad, after reading the book, you will want to tell the Princess, "You go, Girl!"
Rating: 
Summary: Shame, shame, shame!
Review: An absolute must-read! I'm extra glad to be an American, for at least I have true freedom.Get a clue, everybody. Cultures in which "men" (cowardly, self-serving bullies) allow themselves to prey upon the women and children God expects them to protect never make it beyond Third World status and are headed for extinction instead.
Rating:
Summary: Review of Reviews and then Princess
Review: I have read most of the 131 reviews currently posted and have a few things to say about them. Some raise valid questions about the book's credibility (very important because the books claims to be a biography and relates horrifying events), and others say untrue things about the content of Princess. I have read many atrocity accounts in online newspapers (unfortunately I don't remember the countries of origin so for now I'll reserve judgment on Saudi Arabia in particular), and I can believe they happen regularly. I respect the experience of reviewers who have lived in SA and have seen no such things, but please consider the possibility that these cases would be kept from you. I am more convinced by people with experience in the medical field because they are in a better position to see the damage firsthand. I am suspicious of reviewers who call it "sensationalized" without offering counterevidence, and I feel that the ones who objected to the portrayal because things are not like that elsewhere in the Middle East are missing one of her points. Claims that it depricates Islam are nonsense: beginning on page 5 and throughout the book, Sasson carefully differentiates between the religion and many of the perversions portrayed. Female circumcision is addressed in only one chapter, and not until page 120, and I did not have the impression that it was a widespread practice. Be very suspicious of reviews that exaggerate the role of FGM or claim that it stereotypes Muslims or all Middle Easterners. The fact that names and details have been changed, however, does reduce the impact on me because I have to wonder what she left out. I agree that it's likely that her identity could be guessed if the content were true, which further erodes my confidence in the personal details. I rather enjoyed the writing style; it felt like it was being told by someone for whom English is a second language, and the rough spots made me feel that something--an idiom, a metaphor--would always be inaccessable to outsiders. It is an angry, pessimistic, frustrated story told by an aggressive, sometimes downright unlikeable, extremely wealthy woman. It is not an ethnology; it relates policies and anecdotes, but gives no statistics about how often women are that badly mistreated. The picture is bleak: even in her relatively priveliged position, horrors leap out at Sultana at every turn. I can see how this could give an distorted impression of the frequency of these atrocities. She says time and again that the women are happy when and only when their men are considerate (and some are). The political message I got was that until women are protected under the law, anything could happen to them. The cultural message I got was that until all Saudis are raised to see each other as equals (or at the very least, human), there will be no happiness between men and women, and cruelty will abound. I gave it 4 stars because I would have liked more credibility and balance, but there is no such thing as objective reporting, and this book is no exception.
Rating:
Summary: American understanding of the Arab world
Review: First of all, most of the negative reviews seem to be written by non-Saudi Arabs who fear that whoever reads this book will form a negative impression about the entire Arab world. As an American woman who read the book, I take it as an inside look into the Saudi world, not necessarily the entire Arab world. Also, even though an American put this story to paper, it was told by a Saudi woman. More importantly, many of the reviews seemed to compare Sultana's family to a disturbed western family. It is true that many American families struggle with domestic violence and that American society struggles with implementing and enforcing human rights within our own country. BUT, the reason these shortcomings are so well-known is that we expose these problems in our country. There are many TV shows, news articles and private organizations that attempt to tell of human-rights abuses within our country. There are laws against these abuses and there are activists who are not afraid of being jailed when challenging government and society to address these problems. Indeed, journalists jump at the opportunity to expose injustices in our country. The revealing thing about "Princess" is not that there are cruel people in the world, but that those who are abused cannot rely on their government for protection. I cannot say that Saudi men are generally unkind from reading this book. I simply don't know. But, what I can say is that women have very little legal protection. A woman cannot leave the country without her husband's or father's permission. Women can't drive. It's things like this that lead many westerners to believe that women are held in lower regard than men. Also, without an open media in Saudi Arabia and with a society in which domestic violence is seen as a strictly private matter, westerners are left to believe the few nuggets of information we receive from books like "Princess."
Rating:
Summary: wonderful
Review: The biography of a Saudi Arabian princess. A fascinating glimpse into the world of Islam and a place where women, no matter what age, "belong" to their fathers and brothers, then their husbands, never being allowed to be their own people. It is the first of three books about Princess Sultana.
Rating:
Summary: Jewels, clothes and wealth not worth this sacrifice
Review: It is appalling that in this day of age, women are suffering such extreme oppression in Saudi Arabia. Women are treated as objects, yes, their men, if wealthy lavish jewels and clothes on them, but, their sacrifices are great. They have no freedom, not even in their own home. A female child born to a couple is an unfortunate event, at times, the infant is murdured because she was not born male. The circumstances in this country are shocking and this book shocks you into awareness.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbingly fascinating
Review: This book reads like a novel -- I was fascinated through every page, yet deeply disturbed by it all. It is the true story of the life of a Saudi Arabian woman who is part of the royal family (which consists of thousands) and of the tales of those around her. The wealth of the country is unfathomable. The upper class have multiple homes (1 for each wife) in multiple cities. Lear jets, limousines and palaces. The husbands rotate between the homes and the wives and families that live in them, providing for all of the families. If a wife is unable to produce children, she is often divorced and replaced with one that can. Unwilling to do menial jobs, foreign workers are brought in for these tasks. The Koran -- the holy book of Islam -- *is* the law. Lewdness by women is punishable by death. Women are the property of their fathers then husbands. The segregation of the sexes is absolute. Women must hide their beauty from all men except immediate family - shrouding themselves from head to toe in black until no skin or even their eyes are visible whenever they leave their homes. Travel is disallowed without written permission. Living alone is not an option. A woman's happiness and freedom are completely at the will of the men that they live with. It is a culture so foreign and so frightening, continuing to operate in traditions that are centuries old. Sassoon brings you into this world through the eyes of a Saudi Arabian princess -- so much wealth and yet what is it worth without freedom?
Rating:
Summary: A shocking exposure to the world's most apalling truths...
Review: Rarely does a book capture my attention as much as Jean Sasson's "PRINCESS" did. In an entire weekend I could not put the book down until it was finished, and when I finally did there a humble change embedded in my heart. The true stories unleashed from this valiant Saudi Princess brought tears to my eyes. After living in Saudi Arabia myself, I felt personally able to relate to her heart wrenching stories. Not only did her revelations confirm what I already knew by living there, but also they aroused awareness of deeper realities that I never wanted to believe were true. For those who suspect the validly of these stories... well, they probably never lived there. Weather having the experience of living in Arabia our not, anyone can enjoy this book immensely. The passion put forth in this work is truly entrancing, profound, amusing and distressing... without even skipping a beat. I recently finished one of Jean's sequels, "Princess Sultana's Circle". It was equally as riveting and educational. It places the reader in the soul of this brave Princess, and leads you out of the book wanting to contribute more to the movements of human rights. And just for clarity's sake, Jean Sasson's trilogy books were not designed to degrade the Islamic Religion, but to paint an alarming portrait of truth of the lives lived behind the veils. There is no evidence of prejudice put forth in these works, just the exposure of many startling facts, which are long overdue to be revealed in today's society.
Rating:
Summary: The mother of all page turners...
Review: Without a doubt, this is the best book I have ever read in my life. I didn't think I would enjoy a book about Muslim women, but was I ever wrong. The author is extremely talented to be able to take such a dour subject and make it into a highly enjoyable read. And, I was pleased at how the author did not attack the Muslim faith. I am always offended when that happens. This book tells in the most delightful way the story of a Saudi princess. I don't know if it is completely true or not, but I get the feeling that Sultana is real. Perhaps the stories are combined. Whatever, it is an educational experience, a joyful experience, all combined. Every American teenager should read this book. Young men and young women. I think it would make an impact on their lives to know what other cultures are like. As far as the author, I can't wait to read anything she writes.
Rating:
Summary: Misconceptions
Review: I think that this is one of the best books I have ever read. It is a very compelling account of terrible crimes commited against people who do not warrant that type of punishment. This book made me want to take a stand for human rights in this country, if indeed the facts presented within this narrative are true. I read several reviews on here that claimed Americans went into reading this book with a preconceived notion of life in Saudia Arabia being full of rape and other misdeeds. I assure you that in my case, this was not true. The school-taught extent of my knowledge on this subject was the fact that they cut off the hands of criminals; that's all I knew. I don't think that this book has prejudiced me against people from that region of the world. I'm not saying that these crimes shouldn't be fought against, I just do not automatically hate every male from Saudia Arabia after reading this. I'm sure that there are many other places in the world where human rights are infringed upon such as this, but this book brought the issues in this particular country into fuller view. I do not think that anybody can state for certain that the facts in this book are untrue. Nobody else has lived the life that "Sultana" has, therefore you are not qualified to judge whether or not she is stretching the truth. Well, that is all I have to say, thank you for listening. Read the book and form your own opinion.
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