A Woman Is No Man

A Novel

By: Etaf Rum

Narrated by: Ariana Delawari, Dahlia Salem, Susan Nezami

Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

A New York Times Best Seller

A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • Washington Post 10 Books to Read in March • Marie Claire Best Women’s Fiction of 2019 • Washington Book Review Difficult-To-Put-Down Novel • The Millions Most Anticipated Books of 2019 • A USA Today Best Book of the Week • An Elaine Newton - Summer Reading List Critic’s Choice • A Girls Night In Book Club Pick

“I couldn't put it down. I was obsessed with figuring out the mystery of this family." (Jenna Bush Hager, Today Show Book Club Pick)

Three generations of Palestinian-American women living in Brooklyn are torn between individual desire and the strict mores of Arab culture in this powerful debut - a heart-wrenching story of love, intrigue, courage, and betrayal that will resonate with women from all backgrounds, giving voice to the silenced and agency to the oppressed.

"Where I come from, we’ve learned to silence ourselves. We’ve been taught that silence will save us. Where I come from, we keep these stories to ourselves. To tell them to the outside world is unheard of - dangerous, the ultimate shame.”

Palestine, 1990. Seventeen-year-old Isra prefers reading books to entertaining the suitors her father has chosen for her. Over the course of a week, the naive and dreamy girl finds herself quickly betrothed and married and is soon living in Brooklyn. There, Isra struggles to adapt to the expectations of her oppressive mother-in-law, Fareeda, and strange new husband, Adam, a pressure that intensifies as she begins to have children - four daughters instead of the sons Fareeda tells Isra she must bear.

Brooklyn, 2008. Eighteen-year-old Deya, Isra’s oldest daughter, must meet with potential husbands at her grandmother Fareeda’s insistence, though her only desire is to go to college. Deya can’t help but wonder if her options would have been different had her parents survived the car crash that killed them when Deya was only eight. But her grandmother is firm on the matter: The only way to secure a worthy future for Deya is through marriage to the right man.

But fate has a will of its own, and soon, Deya will find herself on an unexpected path that leads her to shocking truths about her family - knowledge that will force her to question everything she thought she knew about her parents, the past, and her own future.

Set in an America at once foreign to many and staggeringly close at hand, A Woman Is No Man is a story of culture and honor, secrets and betrayals, love and violence. It is an intimate glimpse into a controlling and closed cultural world and a universal tale about family and the ways silence and shame can destroy those we have sworn to protect.

©2019 Etaf Rum (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

"Three female narrators work together in this Palestinian family epic.... Listeners will become enmeshed in the overlapping ambitions of these fascinating women." (AudioFile)

“Sometimes heroism is loud and dramatic. Other times, it is daring to listen to that quiet voice within and having the courage to follow it. In this story, we see inside the lives of three generations of Palestinian women living in America, struggling and suffering to hear that voice. Etaf Rum has done a great service by sharing these voices with us.” (Shilpi Somaya Gowda, New York Times best-selling author of Secret Daughter and The Golden Son)

“Garnering justified comparisons to Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns... Etaf Rum’s debut novel is a must-read about women mustering up the bravery to follow their inner voice.” (Refinery29)

Best book of the year (so far)

This year has been the year of returns where I have given in after 20 minutes. This came and my heart was opened. This book should be read in school and in families. It is a story guaranteed to change you.

Can’t recommend enough

Powerful story with great detailed characters, I recommend to anyone. Especially in this modern age, it would be of benefit to learn about this other culture that most of us know of but not much about

Perfect

The best book I have listened to on audible to date. I recommend everyone to read!!!

Legacy of Trauma and Abuse

This story is a page turner. I was hooked from beginning to end. The abuse against girls and women on many levels is universal.

Real and complex

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characters are well-developed and elicit strong feelings of like or dislike. I particularly enjoy multiple narrators and multiple timelines, and the author did these both with intention and skill. Somehow I knew we could not got a happy ending and wondered how I would not end up disappointed, but the author made it work. This story is a very real exploration of womanhood and its connections to religion and place (and, by extension, migration). The performance was great. There were some times I thought a narrator was too loud because the characters should have been whispering, but it was fine.

Powerful

This is an Incredible story that will stay with me for a very long time.

A book for every woman

Not an easy listen but a required listen to understand the oppression of Arab women.

I could not stop listening!

This book had been on my wishlist for quite some time. I’m not sure why it took me so long to listen to it and I am so glad I finally did! This book is heartwarming as it is heartbreaking. It is beautifully written and narrated. This will forever be one of my favorites.

Great listen

Ezra, a Palestinian woman who marries a man whose family moved to the United States as a boy, navigates this new land while trying to remain true to what she was taught as a child. Pressure is placed upon her to have a son but she keeps having daughters. Her husband beats her and she is told to keep it at home. Finally she comes to her breaking point and wants to save her daughters.

This is a hard story. I felt a lot of anger towards Fareeda, the mother,-in-law, and Ezra's mother as well as towards the culture because of the devaluing of women and the allowance of abuse. I felt even more anger towards Adam. the husband, for his abuse and his anger. I hated that Ezra felt it was her fault that this was happening to her. Told from three points of view-- Ezra, Fareeda, and Deaya, Ezra's oldest daughter--i saw different views of the same event. I liked that Deaya stood up for herself and would not let Fareeda marry her off. I also liked that Zara, Fareeda's only daughter, managed to escape the household where she was expected to carry on the same traditions,. it was interesting to watch how the immigrant story changed through the generations--from fear to courage and independence. I'm glad a read this book even though it made me angry and sad.

Highly recommend.

So well written, beautifully navigated, thoughtfully narrated, achingly familiar, fully captivating start to finish.