Review - I am Nujood, Aged 10 and Divorced by Nujood Ali

I am a great fan of biographies, especially those by women and added that they are women from another religion, country or time pulls me in even more.

The feminist in me wants women to learn all their life possibilities. Not to be told No or held back. So when this book came in, I knew I would love it.

It goes through the life of a Yemen girl who has some seriously bad things happening to her family, focused mostly on her young sisters. In order to fix things, or maybe to save her, her father marries her off to a man three times her age who swears to protect her and wait til she is older to consummate the wedding. As predicted, none of this goes as planned. She pleads to those around her for help, but they all tell her to go back and she will be fine. She refuses to live with that verdict and seeks the help of a judge.

My first disappointment in this book was how fast the story is laid out. It is good because it gives the book that much more honesty because it sounds like it was written by a 10 year old. My second disappointment is all the information is surface and not in depth. I would have liked more depth to this book. Since, once again, I do not read the summary of the book before hand I thought the book would be entirely about her struggle to become divorced. Sadly it was resolved within the first quarter of the book. The rest goes on to detail her life after.

I did however enjoy this book simply because of the differences in culture and the fact that she does survive her ordeal to find that life has more to offer than marriage so early in life.

I am Nujood, aged 10 and Divorced is a good, quick read. Though I didn't love it, I would still recommend the book.

Synopsis

"I'm a simple village girl who has always obeyed the orders of my father and brothers. Since forever, I have learned to say yes to everything. Today I have decided to say no."

Forced by her father to marry a man three times her age, young Nujood Ali was sent away from her parents and beloved sisters and made to live with her husband and his family in an isolated village in rural Yemen. There she suffered daily from physical and emotional abuse by her mother-in-law and nightly at the rough hands of her spouse. Flouting his oath to wait to have sexual relations with Nujood until she was no longer a child, he took her virginity on their wedding night. She was only ten years old.

Unable to endure the pain and distress any longer, Nujood fled--not for home, but to the courthouse of the capital, paying for a taxi ride with a few precious coins of bread money. When a renowned Yemeni lawyer heard about the young victim, she took on Nujood's case and fought the...

Other books similar in feel that I would recommend are Some Girls: My Life in a Harem by Jillian Lauren.

I am also really excited to read the book Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali