Nujood is living a life not atypical for a poor, Muslim girl in Yemen when she is forced by her family to marry a stranger three times her age. This book follows Nujood's early life, her marriage and her brave escape from it.
This book is pretty disturbing, in that it talks about the rape and abuse of a child, but it's written to minimize the discomfort. It is certainly not graphic in any way, and the disturbing factor should not preclude anyone from reading it.
It's generally written in a pretty juvenile, simplistic way. I'd like to point out that I'm not disparaging the writing abilities of a 10 year old Yemeni girl here, as it was co-written by a ghost writer and translated into English. I felt like it was written simplistically to dumb it down to the lowest common denominator or something. Maybe I'm suspicious of it's target audience since I bought it impulsively at a big box retailer instead of through my normal channels.
Nujood's story is inspiring. It's a tragic story with a reasonably happy ending, but isn't super insightful. I guess it's not meant to be. This book seems like it would be better for younger readers than adults as it's a very, very light read with not a lot of depth to it.
I would recommend this book to someone specifically curious about child-bride practices, or someone who likes memoirs and isn't put off by 6th grade level reading! It's a quick read that sheds needed light on the topic, but doesn't contain great depth.
3/5 stars
This author astonishes you with its captivating subject and awe inspiring courageousness of a 10 year old little girl! She had to become an adult before she understood what being an adult was! To think that this kind of thing happens everyday in other countries is very disheartening! We call it child molestation here in the USA what they consider to be a binding marriage in consummation!! These acts should be abominated and the people who marry these poor children should be castrated!
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