Customer Reviews

The Dawn of Saudi: In Search for Freedom

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The Dawn of Saudi - In Search for Freedom by Homa Pourasgari ISBN 978-0-9779780-1-4
Review by Chris Phillips
Homa Pourasgari has written a romance novel. The girl is in trouble, hiding from pursuers and truly running for her life. The guy is rich, haughty without realizing it, and handsome. This makes for a good romance novel.
However, Pourasgari takes this common story line and twists it. She keeps surprises popping up throughout the story. Sometimes there are as many as two or three turns in each chapter. Sahar is the main character in the first six chapters. She is a Saudi princess, daughter of a wealthy businessman. She is raised as the pampered princess she is portrayed to be. When the story starts it is her wedding night, and she has apparently committed suicide. The next five chapters recount what led up to that suicide. Several characters are introduced in this section, namely Dawn Parnell and Jason Crawford. In chapter seven, their romance story begins.
Dawn is doing everything she can to be plain and not stand out. She is obviously hiding from the past and doesn't really want anyone to know. She is not looking for love and just trying to get by. When she goes to work at Jason's parents' estate as a housekeeper, the twists begin to come. Dawn was young and foolish once. She married a Saudi businessman believing that she would have a special marriage in a protected compound and still travel all over the world. She didn't, and now she is hiding from him and the Saudi government.
Jason Crawford is a handsome wealthy businessman. He lives at his parents' home, but in his own suite, and maintains a healthy social life. He is noted a playboy and not above having an affair with the domestic help of the estate. He is wealthy, handsome, and very unavailable.
How they learn to love each other and deal with Dawn's problems makes up the plot of the story.
This plot wavers throughout the book. The pace of the book is set with the first chapter, but chapters one through six, Pourasgari, explains the terms and customs of Saudi life as well as trying to move the story along. This technique is very distracting to the point of annoying. Without those details there would only be two chapters instead of six. Instead of defining and explaining as much Pourasgari should have included a glossary in the back.
The story development is very good with solid characters and a good pace. The reader can be glued to their seat compelled to finish a chapter because of such talent. But Pourasgari has an agenda with this book, expressed throughout the book, but concisely explained in the Author's Notes at the end. There Pourasgari explains the tragic life of Saudi women and children within that kingdom. She advocates political and social pressure on the Arab world to stop violating basic human rights. Pourasgari has some very strong views about religion and government being as intertwined as it is in Saudi Arabia. These views would be better expressed in another medium since they distract from the book
She advocates intervention to prevent more abuse of women and children within the Middle Eastern Arab World and everywhere those countries have political power. She lambasts the mediocre and often nonexistent protests and policies of the United States and British governments.
Finally, there is a "Reader's Guide" following the "Author's Notes" section giving the book a pedagogical feel. The questions are relevant and searching for comprehension; however, will probably be ignored by most Western readers.
This book exposes the terrible conditions many people within Saudi Arabia live under. Anyone that is politically active and concerned about human rights should read the book. It is a worthwhile read for anyone. This reviewer highly recommends it for any private reading list.

The Dawn of Saudi exposes the many difficulties men and women face each day while living in Saudi Arabia. It also discusses human rights and the Saudi Justice system. Pourasgari is fair in her descriptions of nationality and religion. Not once did I find her voice to be prejudicing or condescending. She has done her homework well and the plot moves the story along smoothly. Although the author could have cut down on some of the details which slowed down the tale at times, I still found myself completely absorbed in the story and didn't want to put it down until I finished it.

Saudi Arabia is a country of extremes and of have's and have-not's. The landscape can be breathtaking--or very desolate. Men have many rights while women have virtually none. In The Dawn of Saudi by Homa Pourasgari, two brave young women will fight for their freedom, their love and their lives.

This novel highlights the lives of two very different women who have formed a bond while attending college in Spain--a Saudi woman raised in an oppressive culture and an American woman, with all the freedom that entails, who moves to Saudi with her true love. Their bond of friendship will travel across the continents and save one life as another ends.

Sahar, the Saudi woman, is forced by her wealthy Saudi grandfather to wed a fearsome and much older man in order to firm up some shaky family business relationships. She is found dead on her wedding night. The American, Dawn, moves to Saudi Arabia to marry her love, only to find life was not to be as she had been led to believe. Dawn is now missing in Saudi Arabia, while a woman of the same name surfaces into the life of Jason Crawford of California, who has business ties connected to both Saudi families.

There is a lot of descriptive, often horrifying, background on the lives and customs of the Saudi people, which at times can make the book seem a little disjointed. While the mysteries twist around and bounce from continent to continent, it all begins to come together, and the reader finally understands the reason for the many seemingly unrelated details early on in the reading. The story of the romance and mystery are intriguing, while the background and research on the oppression of women show that Pourasgari has done her homework very well. I would have enjoyed the book more if the writer had better command of her medium, or if the book's editors had given her more help with sentence structure and continuities.

by Rhonda Esakov
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

The Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia says that, "as documented by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Freedom House and even the US Department of State, Saudi women are among the most oppressed and marginalized citizens in Arab and Muslim countries." In an author's note at the end of her novel, Homa Pourasgari describes the social and legal environment in Saudi Arabia more directly: "Women have no rights and are considered the property of a man."

Pourasgari's powerful romantic mystery "The Dawn of Saudi" focuses on the lives of two young women who meet while attending college in Barcelona, Sahar Al-Hijazi of Saudi Arabia and Dawn Parnell of the United States. Sahar, whose travels have given her a taste of freedom, fights her family's attempts to force her into a loveless marriage with Husam.

Dawn, however, doesn't heed her best friend's warnings and marries a Saudi man whom she believes is a progressive thinker and finds herself trapped instead within a hopeless world.

"They buried her in an unmarked grave," the novel begins. "Only in death did Saudi women and men receive equal treatment." On the next page readers learn that Sahar collapsed on her wedding night, went into a coma, and died within an hour of an aneurysm.

In California, Jason Crawford worries over the news of Sahar's death because he has business ties to the families involved and doesn't want to see a pending merger with Crawford Enterprises jeopardized.

Subsequently, Dawn Parnell begins work as a housekeeper at the grand Crawford estate. While the house has a large staff, Dawn catches Jason's attention even though she's definitely not the eye-candy type of woman he usually dates and discards. Among other things, he notices that her intelligence, skills and interests greatly exceed those normally expected in a maid placed by an employment agency. How, for example, can she be an expert skier and horsewoman? Since Dawn won't talk about her past, Jason can only wonder what she is hiding and why she hides it so fiercely.

Pourasgari's inventive plot and strong characters not open a wide window onto Saudi oppression of women, but make for a very strong story with the poignant moments of well-told romance and the twists and turns of page-turning mystery. Both the oppression and the fear associated with it are aptly shown from a woman's perspective through Dawn and Sahar. Jason's silver-spoon lifestyle and love-them-and-leave-them approach to women stands out in start contrast to Dawn's and Sahar's experiences, and this adds greatly to the depth of the story.

The story's pacing is disrupted in several sections due to the need to convey a large amount of background information to readers and to other characters about Saudi culture and conservative Islamic law through dialogue and narrative; a longer preface with basic Saudi facts might have reduced the strain on the story. An over-abundance of detail gives an intrusive travelogue flavor to a trip to a resort and a disruptive interior designer's guidebook tone to walks through the Crawford mansion.

That said, "The Dawn of Saudi" remains a very satisfying novel with unforgettable characters who must fight through a labyrinth of western apathy and frightening conservative Islamic beliefs in a search for freedom. The novel is both an education and an oasis for the human spirit.

A westerner goes to Saudi Arabia, does not understand Arabic, he stays in a hotel, goes to the streets and observe a woman covered head to toe,Goes back to his country, and he can write a book about twenty five million people based on previous prejudice judgment and a stupid and shallow observations,
How about digging deeper, and meeting with western woman preferred to live in Saudi Arabia than in their own countries, how about interviewing people who lived in both cultures so they can tell you the difference, you might be surprised of how much you have been brain washed.