REVIEW: The Pearl That Broke Its Shell

The Pearl that Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a fascinating story by a skillful author. This work of fiction is set in 2007 Afghanistan. It centers around a family that has only female siblings. As author Nadia Hashimi shows, this places the entire family in a precarious situation: girls/women cannot move about freely and unmolested in public.  Thus, who will buy food and oil from the market?  And Who will chaperone the girl children when they leave the house? The answer they turn to is the ancient custom of bacha posh, which allows Rahima, one of the siblings, to dress and be treated as a boy until she is of marriageable age. 

The freedom and expansive life Rahima experiences as a boy is in stark contrast to the limitations placed upon her sisters.  Even her father — who knows she’s really a girl — treats her better.  When Rahima becomes a teenager and is forced to get married, she misses the freedom of being male. Moreover, having lived free makes the physical and emotional abuse she experiences in her marriage all the more difficult to endure.

My favorite part of this book was how the author made Rahima's handicapped aunt a central character in the narrative. Though ostracized for her deformity, her character was strong and willful. She empowered her nieces by telling them stories and advocating for them, even when their own mother could not. I give this book 5 stars.


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