Stephanie Jane reviewed The Pact We Made by Layla AlAmmar
A thought-provoking coming of age novel
4 stars
A good choice to read for International Women's Day, Layla AlAmmar's debut, The Pact We Made, is a striking reminder of how many women around the world don't benefit from the hard-won freedoms we women in the West often now take for granted. AlAmmar's heroine, Dahlia, is restricted in her life choices by her family's need to conform to social expectations at all costs and by her own conditioning to never stand out from the crowd or to do anything that might encourage even a hint of gossip. I was amazed at Dahlia being basically considered a child within her society purely because she is still unmarried. This woman is twenty-nine years old, holds down a fairly responsible job and should be perfectly capable of making her own decisions and her own mistakes. However, she isn't even allowed to reside outside the family home, let alone travel independently!
Throughout The …
A good choice to read for International Women's Day, Layla AlAmmar's debut, The Pact We Made, is a striking reminder of how many women around the world don't benefit from the hard-won freedoms we women in the West often now take for granted. AlAmmar's heroine, Dahlia, is restricted in her life choices by her family's need to conform to social expectations at all costs and by her own conditioning to never stand out from the crowd or to do anything that might encourage even a hint of gossip. I was amazed at Dahlia being basically considered a child within her society purely because she is still unmarried. This woman is twenty-nine years old, holds down a fairly responsible job and should be perfectly capable of making her own decisions and her own mistakes. However, she isn't even allowed to reside outside the family home, let alone travel independently!
Throughout The Pact We Made Dahlia speaks directly to readers in the first person and I appreciated that we get to hear her even though it frequently seems as though no one else in her life is truly listening. AlAmmar manages to put across her increasing desperation at being trapped and I could understand how this situation leads her to make increasingly outrageous choices. It interested me that these were often surprisingly childish choices. Dahlia hasn't the maturity that her physical age would suggest and it takes a lot for her to realise this. I could understand her inner conflict between wanting to blame her family for both her current predicament and for the hurt she suffered as a teenager, yet she wonders eventually whether it is still actually fair to shirk taking responsibility herself. She had practically no control over her life a decade ago, but is that still true now?
I thought The Pact We Made was a thought-provoking coming of age novel, especially as its protagonist is so much older than is standard for this genre. AlAmmar portrays Kuwaiti life and culture in an interesting way and, while I certainly didn't like all her characters, I did enjoy the time I spent in their company. I loved the use of the yathoom demon to illustrate Dahlia's inner paralysis particularly as I only recently first saw the Fuseli painting The Nightmare (which depicts such a demon crouching on a sleeping woman) in the TV show The Fall, and now Dahlia picks out the image herself. Her art choices allowed me further insights into her precarious state of mind which is so completely at odds with how she 'should' be. I would recommend The Pact We Made to readers interested in stories about mental health and women's independence.