Reaction: The Pearl That Broke Its Shell

"I was a little girl and then I wasn't. I was a bacha posh and then I wasn't. I was a daughter and then I wasn't. I was a mother and then I wasn't."

There were moments in the course of reading this book that had me paralyzed.  This was more often a sobering read than it was a tragic one.  I followed Rahim(a) with an attentive eye, finding connections with her bacha posh life and mine as a young tomboy.  When she was changed back into a girl, it was with a heavy heart that I read the lines and understood that it was only because she and her sisters were to be married off in exchange for money to further fuel her father's opium addiction which soon became their mother's.  

I cannot imagine putting a price on the body of my young daughter - Ages 12, 13, and 14 Rahima and her sisters were married off into the life of a warlord family to bear children, to lose life, to lose the blindness of a sheltered life, to taste the richness of an open window at the seat of parliament.  Often, I would close the book and exhale loudly.   I would press my hands onto the pages wanting one of them to reach out and not have to endure the life of a young Afghan girl in war torn Afghanistan by the Taliban.

Following Shekiba through her early 20th century life, the great great grandmother of Rahim(a), I admired her skill, her endurance and her hope.  She often reminded me of my grandmother in her incessant will to survive and her faith in God.  Also, a bacha posh for a time, Shekiba knew the importance of her life in guarding the king's harem.  

Through a mighty tragic event she was spared a stoning, but the concubine she was to be protecting did not.  Hashimi describes in artful detail the stoning of this young woman and with each stone that belted the life out of her, I almost could not read on.  Stoning was (and is) true for so many woman that stood outside of the box of rules ordered of them.  Shekiba could be described as a mighty warrior woman who found her place, at last, among the backdrop of an impossible journey.  

Although, this was a work of fiction, it still brought me to my knees to read of these women.  I admired their hope and their courage.  I recommend this book.  Don't give up.