A Woman is No Man

Written By Linda Malek
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A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum ⁣
Reviewed by Linda
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The opening prologue of this book is as follows:⁣
“You’ve never heard this story before. No matter how many books you’ve read, how many tales you know, believe me: no one has ever told you a story like this one.”⁣
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So as you can imagine the bar was set pretty high. Unfortunately, it fell short. ⁣
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We follow the parallel stories of three generations of Palestinian women: Isra, a young bride leaving her homeland to start a new life to Adam in Brooklyn in the 90s, her mother in law and her eldest daughter, Deya, 20 years later. Arab, Muslim women, immigrants, oppressed by the patriarchy, same, same, same. And then, the use of the overdone and general stereotypes to hammer the story home seemed like the book was written for a basic audience. ⁣
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The voices and lives of Arab women living in the diaspora are not a new narrative by any means (this genre is my specialty) and at many points whilst reading I found myself skimming the pages because I knew what was going to happen...but this doesn’t mean that this stuff shouldn’t be written about…I’m just saying! That’s why if you’re gonna write a book of this genre then it has to be real good. ⁣
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So I’m undecided as to whether I enjoyed this book for its easy reading factor or for the literary journey. I really wanted to love this book but I think I’m leaning towards the former. ⁣

Linda Malek

I've always had the urge to set up a forum and voice my thoughts after each read, but never had the confidence to do so alone. 18 months ago, I got my fellow book-loving friends involved and formed The Candid Book Club! Aside from having an exponentially growing to-read pile and deteriorating shortsightedness, we've been lucky to have been invited to publisher events and have attended several talks with our favourite authors (Thank you and long may they continue!) To take a break from the pressures of PhD Chemistry, Jess and I exchanged books all the time and in my youth, I was that kid with the first editions of Harry Potter having already read Gulliver’s travels and some Charles Dickens. At work, my desk is a library and luckily for me I sit next to another bookworm Jack who entertains all the photo-taking. I'm suffering from a chronic case of wanderlust (age-related crisis) so books which are set as far away from home as possible tend to float my boat: Middle East, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Asia...you name it. But if it's got anything to do with Egypt then I'm all over it. So you get the drift...I read all the time, everywhere (on the tube mostly), everyday, a book a week, and very quickly I'm onto the next! And then sometimes there is a book that stops me in my tracks, makes me want to swallow the pages whole, and have it next to me at all times, with some sentences staying with me forever: Shantaram by David Gregory Roberts, anything by Khaled Hosseini, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo (absolute gem of a woman), A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shuklaand and anything by Naguib Mahfouz.

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