A Woman Is No Man: A Novel

A look inside an embedded patriarchal culture. Isra loves to read, books show her a wider world than the insular one where she lives. Custom, however, dictates that women cannot continue with their schooling but must marry instead. When a Palestinian family, one who now make their home in New York,

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travel back to Palestine to find a bride for their eldest son, Isra finds herself married. She wants to fall in love, to be loved and to have more freedom. She is hoping in America to find a three.

A culture, where a man is allowed to do anything, where a woman is just a possession, everything she has or does is at the mercy of a man. The worst thing a woman can do is bring shame on her family.
Isra is someone whose hopes and fears, tug at the heartstrings. Wanting more, she must settle for less. Her eldest daughter will take on the challenge of being allowed to make ones own decisions. So the story alternates between the two, with an occasional chapter narrated by Fareeda, Isras mother in law. We learn all three of their stories.

Isra's plight drew me in, her daughters made me hopeful. I finished this, looked around at my pile of books and thought how luck i was that no one stopped me from reading. So lucky. This was at times a very emotionally draining story, but I think a necessary one. A look inside what is for many a life of darkness. This let's a little light in, by making us aware of what goes on inside some of these closed cultures.

ARC by Harper Collins.

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I am not sure I have ever read a more tragic, heartbreaking story than this one. Devastating and masterfully executed, in my opinion.

I loved this book. Haunting, tragic, heartbreaking, beautifully written. A story of three generations of voiceless Palestinian women. A look into the lives of conservative Arab women living in America. The love of a mother for her children. The struggle between cultural ties and assimilation. The

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futility of hope. Regret. Courage. Engaging characters.

The book opens in Palestine as Isra is being married off to a Palestinian man living in America. Then the story moves to Brooklyn for the remainder of the novel. I was pulled into the story from the first few pages. The story alternates in perspective – Isra, the main character; Fareeda, Isra’s mother-in-law; and Deya, Isra’s oldest daughter. Following cultural expectations, Deya’s mother was forced to marry and now Deya’s grandparents are trying to force marriage upon Deya, but Deya wants to go to college instead. Deya has been raised to believe that her parents died in a car accident, but into her life comes a stranger who is the catalyst for the collapse of the house of lies Deya has grown up in.

I was so immersed in the story that I could feel the frustration and hopelessness these women felt. The heartbreak when Isra’s mother tells her that love has nothing to do with marriage. The futility when Isra found that life was no better for her in America and that, indeed, Marriage had nothing to do with love. Rum also wrote about the cultural expectations that are placed on the men which often leads them to feeling trapped and taking their frustrations out on the women. Deya even turned to her Islamic studies, looking for an explanation, and was told that “When we accept that heaven lies underneath the feet of a woman, we are more respectful of women everywhere. That is how we are told to treat women in the Quran.” The clash of culture and religion.

I loved how Isra, Sarah, and Deya all found comfort and temporary escape in books. They found hope that they could change their lives.

“She’d been raised to think that love was something only a man could give her. For many years she had believed that if a woman was good enough, obedient enough, she might be worthy of a man’s love. But now, reading her books, she was beginning to find a different kind of love, A love that came from inside her, one she felt when she was all alone, reading by the window. And through this love, she was beginning to believe, for the first time in her life, that maybe, just maybe, she was worthy.” (Isn’t that beautifully written?)

Caution: There are scenes of domestic abuse that may disturb some. This kind of abuse can be found in any culture, now just the culture portrayed in this novel. Portions are very difficult to read, but others are a stunning portrait of hope. If you enjoyed “A Thousand Splendid Suns” you must read this book. Both books featured women who were abused yet proved themselves stronger, smarter, and braver than their men. Yes, indeed, “a woman is no man”. Like “A Thousand Splendid Suns”, this book is sure to linger in your thoughts.

I would like to have given this book a 5-star rating but the ending seemed a bit off, leaving me trying to piece it together. I think you will understand if you read it, and I do hope you will. Overall, it is a superb novel.

I received an early copy of this novel. All opinions are my own.

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A Woman Is No Man is an incredibly difficult, heart wrenching novel by a new author. Etaf Rum is a Palestinian woman who was raised in an oppressive, abuse filled home. This novel is a portrayal of the conservative community of Palestinians. Her experiences with oppression, domestic abuse, limited

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opportunities and an arranged marriage form the novel.

The novel focuses on three generations of women. Fareeda, her daughter Sarah, her daughter-in-law Isra and Isra's daughter Deya are the main characters. The responsibilities of these Arab women, their sense of duty, their acceptance of their fate, their sense of shame are clearly and beautifully presented. It's impossible not to feel great empathy while also being unable to comprehend their lives.

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This debut novel from a child of immigrants tells the story of three generations of Palestinian women. But more than an immigrant story, it is rather a universal story, the balance between cultural continuity and individual freedom. Sometimes sad, sometimes violent, but well worth the read. I did

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find the character of Sarah jarring, lacking the authenticity of the other voices.

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Awareness is not the same as having the courage to act. This is the central theme in this debut novel about three generations of Palestinians living in America. The role of women as defined by cultural norms is at the heart of this novel. The author writes very clearly about the complexities of

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family, tradition, cultural pressure, and the desire to have choice. It is a compelling story with what I found to be a confusing ending. Hmmmm.

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A downer, but a rewarding read nonetheless, about generations of Palestinian women trying to break the cycle of abuse and repression and their slow struggle towards self-respect and self-love.

The utter misery and violent outcomes of being a woman in some Arab cultures spans three generations in this affecting novel. In the 1970s, Fareeda is forced to marry at 16 in a Palestinian refugee camp. After giving birth to twin daughters, to her husband's great disappointment, and then having

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the girls die of malnutrition, the family struggles to save enough to migrate to the US, where the family grows to include three sons and a daughter. Their Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Arab neighborhood is wholly and strictly judgmental on the low status of women, continuing the tradition of forcing them into early arranged marriage right after high school and encouraging the beating women and girls who rebel at their restrictions to the drudgery of home and children.

In 1990, Isra, a young Palestinian girl, is chosen as a bride for Fareeda's son Adam and moves into the family home in Bay Ridge, where she gives birth to four girls and is constantly physically and emotionally abused. Adam, as eldest son, works endless hours to support multiple family businesses and takes out his misery on Isra. In an intense depression, she believes herself to be possessed by a jinn.

In 2008, with her parents Isra and Adam both dead, eldest daughter Deya finds out the truth about her mother's life and wrestles with her own fate. Can she be the change agent for herself, her sisters, and her grandmother Fareeda, still anchored by her own self-loathing and complicity in the abuse?

The author grew up in Bay Ridge and her abhorrence of the treatment of women in the Arab culture here and in Palestine is unmistakable. An American reader may be challenged to sympathize with her outrage without being too judgmental about the traditions of a different culture, but this level of mistreatment can never be excused or supported. This is a most powerful indictment, well told by a writer on a mission.

Quote: “Isra was seized to confess, at last, the fear that circled her brain in endless loops: that she would do the same thing to her daughters that Mama had done to her. That she would force them to repeat her life.”

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Heartbreaking/inspiring story of three generations of women from a Palestinian family that immigrated to Brooklyn, NY, told in alternating chapters through the voices of different family members during different time frames.
I adored the theme throughout the novel that books can be life changing.

No Woman is a Man by Etaf Rum is the story of the voicelessness and despair of several Arab women living in America. The book sheds light on the Arab culture. Women were expected to have boys because girls were looked at as a dilemma and burden, while boys were a way to secure the family lineage

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and keep an income. “A women’s worth is measured by house, home, marriage, motherhood.” Family reputation is everything. I was angered and saddened by this “controlling and closed cultural world” and the women who had to live this way. All the women were powerless and had no control over their lives or their fate.
“Women were raised to believe they were worthless, shameful creatures who deserved to get beaten, who were made to depend on the men that beat them.”

The book begins with Isra. The year is 1990. Isra is seventeen years old and is shipped off America to marry a Palestine man. She is hopeful that things will be better for her as a woman in a different country. She finds herself, “displaced from home, torn between two cultures and struggling to start anew.” She ends up being ashamed to be a woman and is even more ashamed of her pathetic weakness.

Deya is one of Isra’s daughters and her story takes place in Brooklyn in 2008. Deya is a lot like her mother. “She had learned that there was a certain way she had to live, certain rules she had to follow, and that, as a woman, she would never have a legitimate claim over her own life.” Deya is at the age where it is her turn to be married. She “felt trapped by the confines of the world” and “spent her life trying to please her family, desperate for their validation and approval.” All she really wants is her freedom and the chance to find real love. “She had lived her entire life straddled between two cultures. She was neither Arab nor American. She belonged nowhere. She didn’t know who she was.” She doesn’t believe happiness is real.

Fareeda, the matriarch of this family, is Isra’s mother-in-law and Deya’s grandmother. She is distraught about how her daughter Sarah is disobedient and shuns her Arab culture. Fareeda: “Hadn’t she taught them what it meant to be tough, resilient? Hadn’t she taught them what it meant to be Arab, to always put family first? She couldn’t be blamed for their weaknesses. For this country and its low morals.” Fareeda herself has come from poverty and survived an abusive father and husband. She has accepted that, “Sadness was an inescapable part of a woman’s life.”

Sarah is the most outspoken of all the women. She refuses to be forced to marry someone she doesn’t love and she makes her feelings known to everyone, including her suitors. She becomes a friend and sister and a light in the dark for her sister-in-law Isra.

What I loved most about this story is the role that books played in these women’s lives. Books were a comfort for loneliness. Books kept them company and made them feel alive.

For Isra, books provided, “a surge of happiness.” They helped her “escape from the ordinary world.” They made her feel worthy and gave her hope.

Deya said, “Books were her only reliable sense of comfort, her only hope.” “How many people were hoping to find their story inside, desperate to understand?”

For all these women, it is safer for them to submit and be silent instead of standing up for themselves and fighting for what they want in the world. By the end of the book, there has been so much heartache that you can’t help but desperately want these women to find some sort of happiness. Will any of them be brave enough to fight for their happiness or will they continue to be tied down by the oppressive chains of their Arab culture?

“To want what you can’t have in life is the greatest pain of all.”

Loved this book and these amazing female characters.

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4.5 stars even though it made me miserable to read about beatings, emotional abuse, and a backward culture struggling to remain Palestinian Arab while in America. The women are not to be anything but wives and mothers. The author says this is a semi autobiographical novel and growing bio she heard

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“a woman is no man” again and again. But we readers should note the resiliency and strength of the women.
She is an excellent writer telling an excellent story. Won’t read it again.

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Such a brave, powerful book written by a Palestine American young woman herself. Love is shown in many different ways... I thought I knew a lot about this subject and learned I knew next to nothing.

This was a very good book about a Palestinian-American family and the lives the women in it lead.

I myself use reading to cope so I identified with Isra and Sarah's ability to find solace in reading.

This book deals with domestic violence and the fight for women to raise their voices for what they

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want.

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I think this is the saddest, most depressing book I've ever read. Isra is betrothed and married to a stranger, Adam, and leaves Palestine to live with him and his family. She bears him four daughters, which shames the family because only sons matter. Years later Isra's daughter Deya is being raised

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by her grandparents and expected to marry a man they choose. Chapters are told by Isra, her mother-in-law Fareed, and Deya. We come to learn of Isra's fate, as Deya struggles to stand up to her grandparents. She does not want to marry at all, at least not now. She wants to go to college. It is unheard of. She is a woman--expected to marry, keep house, and have children (preferably boys). Will she find the strength to make her own story? Could you? Could I?

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I’ve been seeing all the hype, and it deserves it all. It’s a tough read about 3 Palestinian-American women stuck in a vicious cycle of strict and abusive cultural norms . It’s hard to see the older generation of women being as much of the perpetrators through evoking shame and fear of family

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reputation. They tell their sons to beat their wives into obedience and tell their daughters they are a drag on their families.

In a way it reminded me of the memoir Education due to the way the families walled themselves away and lived in paranoia/fear of the standard American culture. Same as Education there is hope for the girls who have the courage to break the cycle.

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This book quickly climbed into my favorites. Although somewhat of a disturbing peek into an Arabic marriage, seen from multiple view points. It is the story of an Arabic daughter who is desperately searching for answers about her parents, and how they died, while trying to live her own

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arab/American life. It is an amazing story and will grab you instantly.

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Very sad story of an arab family who flees from Palestine to the U.S. the story focuses on the women of the family who are suppressed by years of duty and outdated expectations.

This book looks at the lives of three generations of Palestinian women, and questions whether their lives and opportunities have improved over time. In the present day Deya, born and raised in Brooklyn, wants to go to college, but is being forced by her grandparents into marriage. Her mother Isra

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was born in Palestine, but came to Brooklyn when she married. Isra died under mysterious circumstances when Deya was a young child, and Deya (and her younger sisters) have primarily been raised by Fareeda, her grandmother and Isra's mother-in-law.
This was a decent look at the lives of Palestinian women, but it is way too repetitive, and needs some expert trimming by a good editor. We didn't need to hear for the umpteenth time from each of these characters that women in the Palestinian culture have no option other than marriage. And that, no matter what they must put up with and accept spousal abuse. I also got very annoyed at the blame being placed on women who had daughters rather than sons--this is the 21st century--don't they know the sex of the child is determined by the male?
Nevertheless, this was a glimpse behind the curtain into a culture I don't know much about. I especially liked reading about the food.

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Three generations of woman in an American Palestinian family tell their story.
The youngest is trying to find out more about her mother whom she has been told died in a traffic accident with her father.

Wonderful

This is a heartbreaking story but very necessary to be told. If you're thinking about reading it ... Do! You won't be disappointed. Thank you Etaf.

Taught me a lot, but contains so much sadness.

This debut novel by Etaf Rum tells the story of Palestinian immigrant women in the United States. From what I find on-line this story is quite autobiographical. Told in multiple voices by Islamic women and with different narrative voice (flashbacks), this is the story of Isra who came to the US

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after an arranged marriage to Adam. Isra's roots in Palestine includes violence and domestic abuse. She is hopeful that things will be better. She has several daughters in a row which results in her mother-in-laws disappointed and verbal abuse. The second story line is of Isra's daughter Deya. The women are prevented from leaving the home and mixing with American culture and the future is an arranged marriage. The story is engaging but there just isn't much there and things just repeat and repeat and there isn't much change for the characters or events. The ending is odd and did not feel at all right. The story makes negative statements about Israel without giving full details and while it isn't out right anti-semitic, it is anti Israel and fails to depict the reasons why people are in camps in Palestine.

The author is first generation Palestinian American. Her parents came from a refugee camp in Palestine. She was raised traditional and entered into an arranged marriage. She did go to college after she had her children. She did not want to continue the life style of suppression for her own daughter. The title comes from her own life as she was told over and over that she could not do things because she was not a man. She also wanted to portray the strength of Arab women in running home and caring for children and wanted people to know their strength and resilience. The author is divorced. In her interview with NPR, she stated; "I don't have a sense of family, and I feel like because I stopped doing what I was supposed to do, I've let the people closest to me down, in order to achieve what I think I should be doing.".

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In 1990, teenage Isra leaves her home in Palestine to be married to Adam, who she has barely met. She moves to Brooklyn, where she is stifled by her overbearing mother in law, Fareeda, and proceeds to disappoint her by bearing daughters.

In 2008, Isra's oldest daughter Deya is being pushed by her

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grandmother to follow in her mother's footsteps.

This as intense, heartbreaking book. It flips through time, and between all three characters, to let the story unfold. All three women are suffocated by the weight of cultural expectation. (Rum makes clear that these expectations are not Islamic; at worst, she might be accused of an unflattering portrayal of Palestinian-American immigrants, but I don't think such an accusation would bear weight under examination.) The women, and the men they live with, are weighed down by history, dislodged by war and emigration. Without a secure sense of place in America, they cling to a set of cultural rules to separate themselves.

What that amounts to is a stifling, violent, patriarchal life, in which reputation is everything, and the value of a woman is nothing. Women are a burden; sons will bring you security. Even a trip alone to the supermarket would be a breach of protocol. Much of the novel has Fareeda and Isra, or Fareeda and Deya, trapped in the house together. Reading novels is Isra and Deya's act of rebellion, time spent away from the endless work of cooking and serving the men. Adam's sister Sarah, and Isra's sister in law Nadine, push back at what is expected of them, but Isra, trapped between her memories of her mother's own mistreatment and her perceived failure as a wife, becomes beaten down.

The women form the complex, emotional heart of the story, and Rum is interested in how they respond to how they are trapped in their cultural bonds and how they choose to respond with the small amount of agency they have. The men are peripheral. Their control exists in part because women uphold it. While there are hints of their own dilemmas, Rum isn't nearly as interested in them. She has a wonderful sense of detail in their thoughts and experiences--the characters live in an almost claustrophobically contained world, where they rarely leave the confines of their block, but the minutiae, from rolling grape leaves to serving tea, are vivid and bright. The intersecting plotlines allow the story to unfold perfectly. There isn't genuine suspense--this isn't a thriller--and the big reveal is not a sihocker, but the path from A to B is what's of interest here.

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A Woman Is No Man, Etaf Rum, author; Ariana Delawari, Dahlia Salem, Susan Nezami, narrators
This is a heartbreaking novel about Palestinian immigrants who have fled to America from Displaced Person Camps or Refugee Camps after they lost their homes to the Israelis when they occupied their land. The

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reason for the occupation and seizure of the land is never discussed. The opening statement, “I was born without a voice”, is meant to shock the reader, and it does. The story is narrated by Deya, and as she tells the story of the immigrant struggles through the plight of her mother and her family, she reveals her own difficulties and the trials of all those in her immigrant culture, all those who never feel they quite belong but long desperately to fit in and be accepted. Their hardscrabble lives that often go nowhere because of the inability of the culture to modernize, is evident. They are strangers in a strange land with a strange language and customs diametrically opposed to their own, especially those customs concerning women, for Muslim women are often treated like chattel, with the men in their lives expecting absolute obedience from them, even resorting to beating them into submission if they don’t comply. Murder is not out of the question either, for a recalcitrant female. Often the feminine culture in the home is governed by superstition and ignorance. The story begins in Palestine in 1990 and ends in Brooklyn in 2009.
Arab women of Muslim backgrounds, are brought up to believe that they are nothing more than housekeepers, cooks, mothers and servants satisfying their husband’s every need. They have no need of education and certainly have no dreams or hopes of a life other than one of servitude. Should they question their position or rebel, the consequences would be severe, but modern men, those more Americanized, reject such extreme expectations of their women and allow them more freedoms. Some women are allowed to pursue education and careers. Those that adhere to the hardline ways of old, however, seem to do so because of archaic beliefs that disobeying the old rules brings dishonor and shame to the family as neighbors and friends shun them and humiliate them.
When Isre was seventeen, although she did not want to marry, and truly wanted an education, her family arranged her marriage to a stranger. Her husband, Adam, took her out of Palestine to live with him in America and she was forced to abandon her family. It was expected and natural for a female to give up her own family when she married. She could not return. Adam and Isre resided in the basement of his parent’s home. It was dark and unlike the openness and brightness of her home in the place she called Palestine. The home was in Brooklyn where many other Palestinian immigrants had chosen to live. All Isre desired was to be loved and to be happy. She did her best to please her husband, frightened and lonely though she was, and soon became pregnant with their first child. Unfortunately, she turned out to be a female, followed by four more. Fareeda, Adam’s mother showed her displeasure. She was disgraced because her son could not produce a male heir to carry on the family name and to help support the parents and siblings later in life. With daughter’s in law, the work of the mother was eased, but with a son, the family was guaranteed some kind of financial security. She shamefully belittled Isre. She was often arrogant and cruel. She knew no better way to behave. She was a product of the old world.
Deya. Isre’s eldest daughter, is telling this story. She like her mother, wanted more out of life, but unlike her mother, she was determined to pursue her dreams. She lived in a time of greater freedom for women, a time of greater educational opportunity and acceptance of women in the workplace, but still the old customs of her Islamic background held her back and made her fearful of defying her grandparents who were raising her according to strict Islamic laws. Her aunt Sarah, Fareeda’s only daughter, became Deya’s mentor. She had unsuccessfully attempted to influence Deya’s mother, Isre.
The message of the book is manifold. It is about customs that cripple a population of immigrants with superstition, it is about civil rights for all and equal justice, it is about relationships and respect for one another, it is about the tragedy of a strict Islamic culture that supports honor killings and other barbaric behaviors, it is about the futility of putting reputation above all, rather than love and respect for each other, it is about helping each other, not abusing each other, it is about the hardscrabble lives of the immigrant and their effort to survive in a new country, it is about the difficulty of keeping their Islamic culture alive, while also forgiving the abuses of another culture that made them leave their home in the first place. It is about accepting some modern ways, about moving on to enjoy life and not continuing to nurture their resentment about the past. It is about dealing with and facing the future.
The message illuminates the difficulty of maintaining their Islamic culture which is diametrically opposed to some of America’s ways, especially regarding women. It concentrates on the abuse they witness, the hardships they face, and the illiteracy that Muslim women deal with when it comes to what they can expect from life in America and in their religious life. Should they expect more freedom? Will they attain it?
Although the book is not anti-Semitic per se, because it blames Israel for the plight of these suffering families, without an explanation for their expulsion from Palestine, its few harsh comments expressing anger and frustration about Israel’s behavior were so glaring and unfair, it made it impossible for me to give the book five stars. Singularly blaming only the Jewish Homeland for a conflict that has been ongoing for decades was unfair. There is plenty of blame to go around.

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