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![A Woman Is No Man: A Novel by [Etaf Rum]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51eka1QL2wL._SY346_.jpg)
A Woman Is No Man: A Novel Kindle Edition
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A Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist for Best Fiction and Best Debut • BookBrowse's Best Book of the Year • A Marie Claire Best Women's Fiction of the Year • A Real Simple Best Book of the Year • A PopSugar Best Book of the Year All Written By Females • A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • A Washington Post 10 Books to Read in March • A Newsweek Best Book of the Summer • A USA Today Best Book of the Week • A Washington Book Review Difficult-To-Put-Down Novel • A Refinery 29 Best Books of the Month • A Buzzfeed News 4 Books We Couldn't Put Down Last Month • A New Arab Best Books by Arab Authors • An Electric Lit 20 Best Debuts of the First Half of 2019 • A The Millions Most Anticipated Books of 2019
“Garnering justified comparisons to Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns... Etaf Rum’s debut novel is a must-read about women mustering up the bravery to follow their inner voice.” —Refinery 29
The New York Times bestseller and Read with Jenna TODAY SHOW Book Club pick telling the story of three generations of Palestinian-American women struggling to express their individual desires within the confines of their Arab culture in the wake of shocking intimate violence in their community.
"Where I come from, we’ve learned to silence ourselves. We’ve been taught that silence will save us. Where I come from, we keep these stories to ourselves. To tell them to the outside world is unheard of—dangerous, the ultimate shame.”
Palestine, 1990. Seventeen-year-old Isra prefers reading books to entertaining the suitors her father has chosen for her. Over the course of a week, the naïve and dreamy girl finds herself quickly betrothed and married, and is soon living in Brooklyn. There Isra struggles to adapt to the expectations of her oppressive mother-in-law Fareeda and strange new husband Adam, a pressure that intensifies as she begins to have children—four daughters instead of the sons Fareeda tells Isra she must bear.
Brooklyn, 2008. Eighteen-year-old Deya, Isra’s oldest daughter, must meet with potential husbands at her grandmother Fareeda’s insistence, though her only desire is to go to college. Deya can’t help but wonder if her options would have been different had her parents survived the car crash that killed them when Deya was only eight. But her grandmother is firm on the matter: the only way to secure a worthy future for Deya is through marriage to the right man.
But fate has a will of its own, and soon Deya will find herself on an unexpected path that leads her to shocking truths about her family—knowledge that will force her to question everything she thought she knew about her parents, the past, and her own future.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper
- Publication dateMarch 5, 2019
- File size4558 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Review
“A dauntless exploration of the pathology of silence, an attempt to unsnarl the dark knot of history, culture, fear and trauma that can render conservative Arab-American women so visibly invisible…. The triumph of Rum’s novel is that she refuses to measure her women against anything but their own hearts and histories…. Both a love letter to storytelling and a careful object lesson in its power.” (Beejay Silcox, New York Times Book Review)
“What is a woman’s life worth? This question echoes across countries and generations through Etaf Rum’s intense debut novel…. The narrative draws links between economic desperation and discord in the home [and] also touches on the legacy of violence passed down from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories…. A Woman Is No Man complicates and deepens the Arab American story — a tale as rich and varied as America itself.” (Diana Abu-Jaber Washington Post)
“Sometimes heroism is loud and dramatic. Other times, it is daring to listen to that quiet voice within and have the courage to follow it. In this story, we see inside the lives of three generations of Palestinian women living in America, struggling and suffering to hear that voice. Etaf Rum has done a great service by sharing these voices with us.” (Shilpi Somaya Gowda, author of SECRET DAUGHTER and THE GOLDEN SON)
“Garnering justified comparisons to Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns... Etaf Rum’s debut novel is a must-read about women mustering up the bravery to follow their inner voice.” (Refinery 29)
“A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum is a stunning debut novel that hooked me from page one. With the utterly compelling characters of three Arab-American women, Rum accomplishes the high-wire act of telling a story that feels both contemporary and timeless, intimate and epic. This is a novel you devour in a few precious sittings, that you press into the hands of friends and family, that lingers in your heart and mind long after the last page.” (Tara Conklin, author of THE LAST ROMANTICS)
“A story of how a woman can break taboos and break free from patriarchal misogynistic families. This mesmerizing novel will take all your attention from the very beginning.” (Washington Book Review)
“Etaf Rum’s A Woman Is No Man is a shattering, revelatory tale of immigration, womanhood, and the cyclical impact of violence and oppression. In her unflinching story of both loss and hope, strewn with enthralling, vibrant characters, Rum has accomplished the extraordinary: a tale that bridges the domestic and the global, memory and future, the old world and the new. A spectacular debut.” (Hala Alyan, author of SALT HOUSES)
“A Woman Is No Man, bold as a drumbeat, banishes the repressive silence that haunts Isra and her spirited daughter, Deya. This tender tale of women soldiering through a barbed world is a clarion call and a work of literary bravery.” (Nadia Hashimi, author of THE PEARL THAT BROKE ITS SHELL and A HOUSE WITHOUT WINDOWS)
“A richly detailed and emotionally charged debut.” (Kirkus)
“First-time novelist Rum’s setting… is rare: a Brooklyn Palestinian enclave in which reputation matters above all else…. The daughter of Brooklyn Palestinian immigrants, Rum was often told ‘a woman is no man.’ Overcoming her fear of community reprisal, she alchemizes that limiting warning into a celebration of ‘the strength and power of our women.’” (Booklist)
From the Back Cover
“Where I come from, we keep these stories to ourselves. To tell them to the outside world is unheard of, dangerous, the ultimate shame.”
Palestine, 1990. Seventeen-year-old Isra prefers reading books to entertaining the suitors her father has chosen for her. Her desires are irrelevant, however—over the course of a week, the naive and dreamy girl finds herself betrothed, then married, and soon living in Brooklyn. There Isra struggles to adapt to the expectations of her oppressive mother-in-law, Fareeda, and her strange new husband, Adam: a pressure that intensifies as she begins to have children—four daughters instead of the sons Isra is expected to bear.
Brooklyn, 2008. At her grandmother’s insistence, eighteen-year-old Deya must meet with potential husbands and prepare herself for marriage, though her only desire is to go to college. Her grandmother is firm on the matter, however: the only way to secure a worthy future for Deya is through marriage to the right man. But fate has a will of its own, and soon Deya will find herself on an unexpected path that leads her to shocking truths that will force her to question everything she thought she knew about her family, the past, and her own future.
Set in an America at once foreign to many and staggeringly close at hand, A Woman Is No Man is a story of culture and honor, secrets and betrayals, love and violence. It is an intimate glimpse into a controlling and closed cultural world, and a universal tale about family and the ways silence and shame can destroy those we have sworn to protect.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.About the Author
Etaf Rum was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, by Palestinian immigrants. She lives in North Carolina with her two children. Rum also runs the Instagram account @booksandbeans. A Woman Is No Man is her first novel.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.From the Inside Flap
"Where I come from, we keep these stories to ourselves. To tell them to the outside world is unheard of, dangerous, the ultimate shame."
Palestine, 1990. Seventeen-year-old Isra prefers reading books to entertaining the suitors her father has chosen for her. Her desires are irrelevant, however--over the course of a week, the naive and dreamy girl finds herself betrothed, then married, and soon living in Brooklyn. There Isra struggles to adapt to the expectations of her oppressive mother-in-law, Fareeda, and her strange new husband, Adam: a pressure that intensifies as she begins to have children--four daughters instead of the sons Isra is expected to bear.
Brooklyn, 2008. At her grandmother's insistence, eighteen-year-old Deya must meet with potential husbands and prepare herself for marriage, though her only desire is to go to college. Her grandmother is firm on the matter, however: the only way to secure a worthy future for Deya is through marriage to the right man. But fate has a will of its own, and soon Deya will find herself on an unexpected path that leads her to shocking truths that will force her to question everything she thought she knew about her family, the past, and her own future.
Set in an America at once foreign to many and staggeringly close at hand, A Woman Is No Man is a story of culture and honor, secrets and betrayals, love and violence. It is an intimate glimpse into a controlling and closed cultural world, and a universal tale about family and the ways silence and shame can destroy those we have sworn to protect.
--Beejay Silcox, New York Times Book Review --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.Product details
- ASIN : B072JT5GT5
- Publisher : Harper; Reprint edition (March 5, 2019)
- Publication date : March 5, 2019
- Language : English
- File size : 4558 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 363 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : 0063139022
- Best Sellers Rank: #14,689 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #61 in Cultural Heritage Fiction
- #85 in Women's New Adult & College Fiction
- #142 in Women's Historical Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

The daughter of Palestinian immigrants, Etaf Rum was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She has a Masters of Arts in American and British Literature as well as undergraduate degrees in Philosophy and English Composition and taught undergraduate courses in North Carolina, where she lives with her two children. Etaf also runs the Instagram account @booksandbeans and is also a Book of the Month Club Ambassador, showcasing
her favorite selections each month. A Woman Is No Man is her first novel.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2019
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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That said, this is a sad book. Very, very sad. And the sadness never lets up. Just know that before you start reading.
Forget the melting pot. Khaled and Fareeda Ra'ad have been displaced from their homeland of Palestine, and even though the United States is a safe haven from the refugee camps, they are doing everything they can to keep their children from becoming Americans. Traditional Arab culture is king of this house, which means the men rule the women and the women submit, which means regular beatings and physical abuse by fathers and husbands.
It's 1990. Isra is 17 and living in Palestine when she marries Khaled and Fareeda's eldest son, Adam, in an arranged marriage and the next day leaves all she has ever known to live with Adam in the nearly windowless basement of his parents' row house in Brooklyn. Isra has one purpose: bear sons. Her domineering mother-in-law, Fareeda, makes her life miserable, while Adam's father and brothers ignore her. Only Adam's sister, Sarah, pays her any attention. But Isra fails. She only has daughters. Four of them. And she suffers greatly for this, both physically and emotionally as she lives a life shrouded in silence, violence, and fear. Isra's tragic, horrific story alternates in time with that of her daughter, Deya, a senior in high school who is being pushed by Fareeda into an arranged marriage against her will, as well as Fareeda's devastating, gruesome backstory. But secrets—awful, horrifying, unspeakable—secrets lurk beneath the surface and eventually bubble up. There is a little hope: Deya does something truly daring and that could change the trajectory of her life's planned path.
Note: The ending gave me chills, but it only makes sense if you recall the events that occur on pages 218-220.
This is a story about women who are discarded, women who are little more than the day's trash, women who are daily abused, women who are invisible, women who have no life beyond serving men who are ungrateful and brutal in return. This makes it a hard, albeit profound, book to read because it just never lets up. It is absolutely relentless.
According to the Etaf Rum (and do read the excellent interview with her at the end of the book), this is all real. She confesses to feeling "constantly swallowed by fear" for breaking the code of silence. This is a novel, but it's based on her life; she calls the book semiautobiographical. It is a true depiction of how women are actually treated in conservative Arab-American communities. And that makes this book even more dreadful and shocking.
There is one bright light: The book is also a love letter to books and the power or reading.
As a native born Christian American, I admit I know little to nothing of family life among immigrant Muslim families. So, the harshness, lack of tenderness, and strict expectations for females in the story’s family were hard to read and accept. If this is the reality for women in America among Muslim families, then I have a heavy heart for them. I cannot understand putting reputation and cultural expectations above the needs and desires of your own children. I can only hope that women and girls in situations like in this story can learn from the characters how important it is to stand up for yourself and those you love.
This is not a book to pick up lightly. It is deep and painful and thought-provoking. Just be prepared as you read it.
Now, I am going to make a confession here. Sometimes (often) the best books I read are the hardest to write reviews for. When I write reviews I do try to review in a space away from the book so that I try not to let my emotions take over…usually taking a few days away from finishing the book is enough to disengage enough but with this book…I think the scars this left me will always be with me, just below the surface.
This book was brutal and although I’d love to buy like 1000 copies of this and just hand them out to random women I see, I will be the first to say that this book is brutal. It does not shy away from the mistreatment that women in this culture are often subject to. Arranged marriages are the norm. Domestic violence is all to often ignored. It is not graphic, but I found myself having to take a palate cleanser (aka switch to another book) fairly often because it upset and angered me.
It is also claustaphobic. A lot of this book takes place in an apartment in Brooklyn, and in so many ways, the apartment served as a prison, first for Isla and then for Isla’s oldest daughter, Deya. So when and if you choose to read this, make sure you do have something fun to do during breaks and try to get some sunshine. And the ending especially is brutal so definitely plan for that.
I know based on this review it sounds like this is the most depressing misery porn you can read, but I promise you that it doesn’t seem that way when you are reading it. There is hope in this book. There’s characters that you will love and want to fight for and the writing is flawless.
Top reviews from other countries

It’s not always easy to read something that questions the very morality of human nature and to think that in this society, in this day and age these things still happen. It’s very easy to, especially by western standards to assume that it’s easy to walk away, but when you come from a country in which submission was all that you knew and culture was the very beacon of hope that you had, how could you?
I was very fortunate that I had a mother who was BRAVE and COURAGEOUS and decided no, this is not the life I want for my daughters or for me.
Growing up in a community in which culture is more heavily favoured then the actual practises of religion I can relate to this fictitious novel on so many levels. I was fortunate enough to have a mother who broke social conventions and took a stand, irrespective of what the consequences she faced were. I was able to, as a result of her ‘defiance’ lead my own life, educate myself to the highest degree and free to marry who I wanted. But I saw the struggles she faced.
Novels like this are for women like my mum who went against social normality for Arab women and totally shatter those traditions. It’s a breath of fresh air to see a woman write so honestly about the trials and struggles of so many women in modern day society and not give a damn about what the repercussions may be. It’s time to voice the harsh reality and we cannot simply leave it to the @etafrum and @reemazaman of the world to voice them. We should too and that is why I dedicate this post to my MOTHER and to all the WOMEN who did what she did.
Etaf I cannot express my gratitude, love and respect for you enough for ‘A Woman is NO Man.’

I have read a lot of books about the state of women in the Arab world, but none touched me so much as this one. Rum has very artfully braided together the story of Isra and Deya, and adorned it with insights from Fareeda and Sarah. I could actually feel Isra’s pain and wanted to help her. Palestinian history is so reeked in violence that it has been handed down to generations and manifests in men like Adam and Khaled, and over time this kind of behavior has been normalized. I also felt that for fortunate women like me studying is an act of compliance, to make a name of myself in this world; but for women like Deya and Isra, it’s an act of defiance. And the struggle of these women whether to defy or not has been skillfully brought out in the story.
Writing this would have been a quite an emotional turmoil for the author. Islamophobia plagues our world today and exposing such a dark side of the Arab world by an Arab woman would be considered a betrayal of the community. The Quran holds women in high regard, but the mortals unfortunately don’t. A women is no man because she is considered inferior to a man, but a woman is also no man because what she might lack in physical strength, she makes up for with resilience and emotional strength.

The author writes well; although her chosen subject matter was not palatable to me, I accept it was necessary for her to address it in order to write this novel.
The question I often ask myself about debut novelists is, how much of the story is really fiction and how much of it is a semi-autobiographical vehicle for them to express all the issues they’ve been grappling with in their lives up to the point of writing. Just because something is true doesn’t mean it translates well into a novel. I will look out with interest for her next novel.
I also had a little discomfort with the way the author chose to chop up the chapters - occasionally it interrupted the flow so much for me that I found myself skipping chapters in order to follow one character’s story arc, before going back to read the chapters I’d overlooked.
I enjoyed the descriptive writing and an insight into Palestinian life and culture over the decades. I don’t know that I want to accept that her descriptions of some attitudes and behaviours are still prevalent today in the Palestinian community both in the Middle East and in America, but perhaps that is why the author decided to write this book.
I thought the solution the author found for the main character was a brave and realistic one, so full credit to her for being progressive.

Started reading this at 9 pm one evening, couldn’t stop reading A Woman is No Man and by 2 a.m. had read half of it.
This is the heartbreakingly sad story, told from the perspective of three people - Isra herself, her daughter, Deya and Kaseeda, her mother in law.
It’s the story of a woman called Isra and her daughters.
Isra, while still living in Bersait, Palestine, marries a man, originally from Palestine whose family had emigrated to America in search of a better life for their family. Isra returns with Adam to America and lives with him and his family, his mother Fareeda, father Khaled and brothers Omar and Ali in a faded red brick house in the diverse immigrant community of Bay Ridge, two blocks east of Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn NY.
Fareeda rules the roost. The other women in the family are expected to obey the harsh rules of the insular patriarchal society Fareeda herself and the Arab friends and contacts in her circle conform to. Harsh experiences of living in a refugee camp in Palestine have given Fareeda the bravery to stand up to her husband Khaled and not accept harsh punishment from him, but still expects the women in her immediate family to be mere chattels to their own husbands, her precious sons. The daughter’s in law in her family were expected to spend their days helping her with the chores of cooking, washing clothes and cleaning. Although their work and skills doing the chores were appreciated by Fareeda, Fareeda’s sons’ needs always came first. Isra, Adam’s wife was supposed to know her place, not answer back and be the mild complacent wife that was expected of her.
Isra had always taken solace in book reading back in her own home in Bersait and from her reading choices of fiction she had developed a romanticised view of how married life might be for her.
‘Some nights she had dreamed she’d marry the love of her life and that they’d live together in a small hilltop house with wide windows and a red-tiled roof. Other nights she could see the faces of her children—two boys and two girls—looking up at her and her husband, a loving family like the kind she’d read about in books’
When her husband Adam, the hardworking elder son of the family running the family deli and working long hours takes his frustrations out on her at night by beating her even though she cooks his favourite meals and tries endlessly to please him. Isra believes it is all her own fault. She’s not trying hard enough. Sometimes he returns home in a pleasant mood and he might take her out sightseeing in the evening but at other times everything she does irritates him
Isra would never stand up to him, just tried to be the person and the wife she thinks he wanted her to be despite his exhaustion and unpredictable nature.
Isra’s spirit continues to be broken bit by bit after bearing Adam’s children, all daughters and therefore displeasing Fareeda to whom daughters are a burden and a grandson would be a blessing. Another daughter is, according to Faseeda, a balwa—a dilemma, a burden.
Faseeda’s own daughter Sarah, a free spirit has her own mind and views and by her stance of non conformity to her mother’s standards has no expectations of meeting a suitor by the usual arranged marriage ritual that was expected of her. Sarah would like to attend college rather than be in an arranged marriage from an early age.
Sarah and Isra become friends and Sarah brings home books from school for Isra to read.
Once again, books bring Isra joy and take her imagination away from her unhappy life. She reads to her daughters and reads her own precious supply of books whenever she can between chores.
When it’s Fareeda and Khaled’s son Omar’s turn to find a wife they once more return to Palestine and then come back to the USA to with Omar and his new wife Nadine
‘“Forget all this American nonsense about love and respect,” Fareeda said to Omar now, turning to make sure Isra was setting the table. “You need to make sure our culture survives, and that means teaching a woman her place.”
As she grows up, Deya has come to terms with the loss of her mother Isra and accepts the story told to her by Fareeda of a car crash in which apparently her mother and father were killed. That is until she is passed a note by a mysterious stranger telling her that she needs to go to a bookshop called ‘Books and Beans’.
At Books and Beans Deya learns of the true fate of her parents and realises there is much she has been unaware of, although her memories of violent conflict between her parents remain.
Deya wishes to attend college but her grandmother Fareeda tries to dissuade her
“It doesn’t matter where we live. Preserving our culture is what’s most important. All you need to worry about is finding a good man to provide for you.”
“College is out of the question. Besides, no one wants to marry a college girl.”
This book is an extreme fictional example of an Arab family who did not integrate into American society and didn’t wish to be a part of it. The book has its critics and especially so from members of those from Muslim/Palestinian origins whose families did integrate successfully, attending college and doing well.
I found it to be a gripping interesting story and it held my interest right until the ending that I thought was a bit of a surprise

I personally think this book was one of my favourite reads of 2021 and it is so clear that it’s based on a true story. It felt way too real to have been completely fictional. The way this book angered me to my core is unreal. If this books doesn’t invoke anger to you at all, it definitely didn’t serve its purpose. It is an incredibly thought-provoking book and it scares me that these types of situations regularly occur to people in real life. It’s not an easy read, but you’ll learn so much from it; trust me.
I would definitely recommend looking into trigger warnings before reading this as there are many mentions of suicide and domestic violence. I usually get through books like these in 3 days, but this book right here took me about a week to process (bare in mind that i’m 17yrs old).
it’s a 10 out of 10 for me. Remarkable writing.


Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 24, 2021
I personally think this book was one of my favourite reads of 2021 and it is so clear that it’s based on a true story. It felt way too real to have been completely fictional. The way this book angered me to my core is unreal. If this books doesn’t invoke anger to you at all, it definitely didn’t serve its purpose. It is an incredibly thought-provoking book and it scares me that these types of situations regularly occur to people in real life. It’s not an easy read, but you’ll learn so much from it; trust me.
I would definitely recommend looking into trigger warnings before reading this as there are many mentions of suicide and domestic violence. I usually get through books like these in 3 days, but this book right here took me about a week to process (bare in mind that i’m 17yrs old).
it’s a 10 out of 10 for me. Remarkable writing.


