The Article below was published in Vol. 135, Issue 4 of the Lake Forest College Stentor on December 6, 2019
By Maryam Javed ’21
Opinions Editor
The controversial book, Girls of Riyadh, offers a vivid portrayal of modern life in Saudi Arabia, depicting women enjoying the occasional glass of champagne in secret, driving despite the law at that time forbidding women to drive, and finding love in a very much gender-segregated society. Though the book was originally published in Arabic in 2005, many of its overarching themes remain relevant today.
The novel tells a story of four ambitious young Saudi women: Lamees, Michelle, Sadeem, and Gamrah. All four women hail from affluent families in the country’s capital, Riyadh, but face a series of challenges in finding love due to clashing social classes, deep-rooted religious prejudices and beliefs, societal pressures, and gender inequality; issues the country still tackles with today.
The book is told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator through a series of emails on a Yahoo subscription list about the lives of each of the four women. The character Gamrah, who is the most traditional of her friends, faces a great predicament in her arranged marriage with a man she barely knows. After her wedding, she soon moves into an apartment in Chicago with her husband, however, she is often left alone and feeling trapped. Sadeem’s family also fixes an arranged marriage for her to a handsome civil servant and she falls madly in love with him, however, the two enter a dangerous love affair that could potentially prevent the marriage from taking place. Lamees, a hard-working medical student, falls in love with a Shi’a man, which is considered unacceptable by the majority of Sunni-Muslim society. Michelle, who is half American, faces problems when she falls in love with a man whose family expresses disdain toward the fact she has an American mother.
This work is often branded as the Saudi version of “Sex and the City” due to the secrets the characters have and their wild love affairs, however the book highlights a number of social and religious issues that are prevalent in the country. Each character highlights these social and religious issues in one form or another. Gamrah learns how to become an independent woman after her husband leaves her for another woman and grapples with being scrutinized by Saudi society as being a divorced single mother. Lamees accepts the harsh reality of the religious tensions between Shias and Sunnis in Saudi Arabia and the fact that boys and girls cannot be seen alone with one another in public. Sadeem is heartbroken after her fiancé used and left her, leaving her feeling powerless, and Michelle becomes a victim of prejudice by a man’s family, which she intended on marrying into.
Overall, I would rate this book 4/5 because the email format was difficult to follow, at times. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in feminist literature and contemporary life about women living in the Middle East, especially in a country like Saudi Arabia where many people have preconceived notions or stereotypes in their minds that the women living there are oppressed. Though the society itself has many restrictions, it does not stop these women from pursuing their dreams and finding love, which is something that is truly inspiring and worth reading.
Maryam Javed can be reached at javedm@mx.lakeforest.edu
