<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: a pleasure
Review: A very interesting and fast read. The story of four young Arab women and the different worlds and choices which confront them. The women are all cousins---two are American; one flits between the US and Jordan and the fourth lives in Jordan. There are no simple stereotypes or answers in this book. In fact, the stories involving Khadija and Hala are never fully resolved---you are left dangling which is okay and very realistic. This is a really quick read---you can read it in an evening. I strongly recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: a pleasure
Review: A very interesting and fast read. The story of four young Arab women and the different worlds and choices which confront them. The women are all cousins---two are American; one flits between the US and Jordan and the fourth lives in Jordan. There are no simple stereotypes or answers in this book. In fact, the stories involving Khadija and Hala are never fully resolved---you are left dangling which is okay and very realistic. This is a really quick read---you can read it in an evening. I strongly recommend it!
Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't put it down - Poetic & Realistic
Review: I enjoyed every page of this book. The book allows the reader to enter into the world and thoughts of young Arab women. The story is sprinkled with wonderful vignettes about the women and their families. The characters were real & the writing poetic. I especially enjoyed the parts taking place in Jordan and Palestine. I hope this is the first of many books from this author!!
Rating:
Summary: If you really wanna know
Review: I read this book in many of it's stages; it combines the writers maturity and artistic complexity along with the ability to present complex characters on a simple and attractive plate of interwoven stories. If you really wanna know what it means to be a palestinian girl living under constant deprivation of stable mental conditions .. read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully Done
Review: This insightful first novel by Jordanian-American author Laila Halaby shows that the influences that shape the lives of many Arab women are the same ones that affect their American sisters: upbringing, religion, the urban-rural divide and economic and educa-tional circumstance. Halaby writes about four young Arab women, cousins with deep family roots in Palestine. One still lives in the occupied West Bank, one is torn between her family in Jordan and her studies in Arizona, two live with their immediate families in unfamiliar California. The novel speaks through different voices in successive chap-ters, and the chapters overlap in the narrators' shared memories of their collective ex-tended family: grandparents and a spectrum of aunts and uncles, cousins, brothers and sisters. Halaby interweaves the women's stories, allowing us to see each cousin from multiple points of view. Her dialogue is comfortably authentic, whether traditional or transplanted. The four women relive the oft-repeated legends of their origins in Pales-tine: tales of births, weddings and funerals captured in photo albums and replayed on videotapes. Individual lives become fragments in a rich and intricate mosaic as the lar-ger family history unfolds.
Rating:
Summary: Great book...
Review: This is an excellent book that will really get to your heart. A must for Asian Literature students. I bought it using a coupon from UnderTag.com, so it was almost free for me.
Rating:
Summary: Delicious voice, great female characters
Review: This terrific book depicts the everyday life of young Arab girls in the U.S. and the Middle East. The story alternates between four cousins whose problems are both familiar and particular to their culture. The writing is lush and exotic. I recommend this book to anyone, but particularly to women who want to know what life is like for Arab girls caught between two worlds -- and who want to read a good story!
<< 1 >>
| 
