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A good memoir needs three things: an intriguing experience, exceptional writing, and emotional connection. Check, check, and check. Vanessa shares her fascinating and gut-wrenching experience of living as an American wife and mother in Syria. The upshot of Vanessa's life is that she is a hostage to her circumstances. She met a man in university in the USA, fell in love, married, and moved to Syria to make a life with him. Things go south as loneliness, culture shock, and abuse creep into her life.
Seemingly, there are good and abusive spouses everywhere. However, the distinction between the US and Syrian laws dealing with domestic issues is that Syrian society is completely patriarchal. Wives and children are legally the property of their husbands and fathers. To leave Syria, Vanessa needed her husband's permission; and even if she snuck out somehow, to do so meant leaving her children behind.
Emotional connection with Vanessa is easy. Readers can't help but feel the angst of her situation. Anyone would admire the poise and strength Vanessa draws upon in order to endure (and even sometimes embrace) her life in the Middle East. She explains the source of her endurance: "Maybe it is a universal truth; moms make the most enormous and heartbreaking sacrifices for the benefit of their children."
Vanessa is a well-educated American woman, and she impeccably describes her years living in Syria with a sometimes-abusive Syrian husband and his extended family. She never tells readers what to think. In any art form, provoking thought and forcing audiences to formulate their own opinions and conclusions is meritorious and laudable. This book is a must-read.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review