Le silence d'Isra

This was a struggle, the setting and generational story of arranged marriages, domestic violence, and isolated women in strict conservative households is grounded, relevant, and sometimes well delivered. The author stand-in character really irked me in her attempts at advice, and I'm realizing it's regularly difficult for me to read average characters acting confused in the dark about well-foreshadowed violence.

This would be a good read for any feminist book club. It's well-written so the pages turn quickly, but it's a tough read because it's hard to see women treated consistently like second class citizens, only here to serve their husbands and sons. I appreciated that it was set in modern day (the 90s and the 21st century) Brooklyn because I naively thought of the issues addressed in this book as belonging to a different time or a different place.

I bawled. Knowing that this is the reality of millions of women in the world and could've been mine made it feel like a gut punch.