Girls of Riyadh is a bold text by Saudi Arabian author, Rajaa Alsanea, featuring four upper-class young women dealing with love, education, culture difference and Islamic tradition within the female restrictive society of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Growing up within a patriarchal culture that demands they follow the rules in how they act, dress, and what they choose for an occupation, each of the girls, Gamrah, Leemes, Sadeem, and Michelle react differently towards the society in which they live in. Their encounters are then vocalized through narrated emails, which are sent out via subscriptions to other Saudi Arabians, in order to reveal their female adolescent experience within the restrictive Saudi Arabian culture.
In Alsanae's novel, the four young women are living in the upper-class area of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. Riyadh is the capital of the country, made up of an urban community and contains over 5 million people. It is also the homeland of the Islam religion and they strive to live by tradition.
The main themes within Girls of Riyadh are marriage, friendship and feminism.
As the girls grow up within the the novel, their society deems them at the appropriate age range to get married. Therefore, many of the girls undergo the traditional Saudi Arabian marriage process and ceremony. The female role, within that society, is also centered around marriage, so it becomes an overlying issue that the four girls deal with. Here is a link to a video featuring a traditional Islamic wedding.
The theme of friendship is also evident. It can be scene as the four girls age and deal with different situations, leaning on each other for help and advice.
Because the young women's stories are told anonymously in hopes to reveal how Saudi Arabian women are restricted in their lives to the rest of the public, it illustrates a sense of feminism throughout the novel.
More on Rajaa Alsanea & Girls of Riyadh:
Rajaa Alsanae's Official Twitter Page
Book Trailer on the Novel
Other Reviews on the Novel:
I would rate Rajaa Alsanea's novel a 4 stars out 5. Alsanea does an excellent job in creating a dramatic narrative, interlocking four different lives around similar issues. The narrative was a little long and whiny in some areas of the novel, causing me to dock my rating by one star. However, overall, I enjoyed learning more about the female role within the Saudi Arabian culture!
