452 pgs.
Adult Realistic Fiction - switches between contemporary and historical/100 years ago
Finished Sat. 8/8/14
Goodreads rating: 4.28
My rating: 4.5 This was an outstanding book
TPPL
Setting: a village in Afghanistan, includes peeks at Kabul during both time periods depicted (1900 and 2007)
1st sentence/s: "Shahla stood by our front door, the bright green metal rusting on the edges. She craned her neck. Parwin and I rounded the corner and saw the relief in her eyes. We couldn't be late again."
My comments: I have to think really hard about rating this book. I keep thinking about the last words I read in it, in the acknowledgement section by the author. She says, "A special acknowledgement to all the daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, and teachers of Afghanistan...." However, other than the protagonists (and Rahima's immediate family), with only a few exceptions, the women depicted in the novel are hateful, vengeful, and mean. This includes mothers-in-law, grandmothers, sisters-in-law, and other wives who are also daughters, mothers, and aunts.
The story is about two different women, one living at the beginning of the 20th century, the other more contemporary, living at the beginning of the 21st. Related by blood, both get the opportunity to "shed" their female personna for part of their lives and live a bit more freely as a male. They both become wives and mothers, but not in the way most American women might think of becoming a wife and mother. The chapters alternate and it is not at all difficult to keep the stories or the people in each story separate.
The images left in my mind after reading this book will stay with me. I couldn't put this book down. I realize that Afghanistan's reality is incredibly different from mine, and this novel gave me added perspective. So many questions are left, particularly about religion and the heavyhandedness some apply to the "rules" that go along with that religion....
Goodreads book summary: Afghan-American Nadia Hashimi's literary debut novel, The Pearl that Broke Its Shell is a searing tale of powerlessness, fate, and the freedom to control one's own fate that combines the cultural flavor and emotional resonance of the works of Khaled Hosseini, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Lisa See.
In Kabul, 2007, with a drug-addicted father and no brothers, Rahima and her sisters can only sporadically attend school, and can rarely leave the house. Their only hope lies in the ancient custom of bacha posh, which allows young Rahima to dress and be treated as a boy until she is of marriageable age. As a son, she can attend school, go to the market, and chaperone her older sisters.
But Rahima is not the first in her family to adopt this unusual custom. A century earlier, her great-aunt, Shekiba, left orphaned by an epidemic, saved herself and built a new life the same way.
Crisscrossing in time, The Pearl the Broke Its Shell interweaves the tales of these two women separated by a century who share similar destinies. But what will happen once Rahima is of marriageable age? Will Shekiba always live as a man? And if Rahima cannot adapt to life as a bride, how will she survive?
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