A woman is no man

  The prologue opens with saying "I was born without a voice, one cold, overcast day in Brooklyn, New York. No one ever spoke of my condition. I did not know I was mute until years later when I opened my mouth to ask for what I wanted and realized no one could hear me". The opening itself foreshadows and tie the theme of this novel, which is of gender inequality and oppression of woman. However, this novel gives them a voice.
  Isra suffered most of her life, confined in the basement, the guilt of borning only daughters hanging over her head; she was trapped in depression and loneliness. In the novel, we see that she had some hope of leading a different life when preparing to come to America, a glimpse of hope that maybe women would have more rights, that she would be freer. Her mom had told her it doesn't matter if where she is in the world, a woman will always be a woman, and Isra learned that early on. The fact that Isra suffers the fate of death at the hands of her own husband is tragic. It would be nice to hear that she made it out, she escaped with her children and led a completely different life. However, her death at the hands of her husband is in a way realistic. Most women don't make it out of these situations because for many of them, it is all they know. Although devastating and brutal, this scene shines a light on the reality of domestic abuse and the life that these women had to endure. While reading books that Sarah had snuck in for her, Isra always expresses her desire to find women like her in the novel, and I believe that this novel grants her wish in a way.
  The ending of the book is tragic because readers know that Isra never made it to freedom while reading the scene of her taking a bus to escape. However, I believe that this scene shows the love she has for her children. Throughout the novel, we see Isra as a quiet girl, never daring to speak her mind, and the complete opposite of Sarah. She was depressed, and at some point, felt like there was nothing she could do except to endure the pain and have patience, forgetting about the aspect of love in a marriage. Her running to the bus with her children gives us a glimpse of hope, and prove that she IS brave, that she always had something in her to take the kids away and flee from her home. When reading about how she constantly had daughters, we can see that Isra is visibly upset. Her situation and shame she carries from having daughters made her resent the girls at some times. Deya sometimes questions if her mother ever loved her. This ending also shows that Isra has so much love for her daughters because she risked everything to take them away so they could lead a better life.
    A woman telling her story is important socially, culturally, and individually because these are words that the world need to hear. Books like this give the voiceless a voice and call for a change in the way that women are treated. Character such as Freeda is a prime example of the consequence of being raised within a mindset where women are seen as less than. Freeda knows that women are treated wrong and that Isra was being hit, however; she does nothing about it because this is all normal to her. She has a mindset that this is how it is for women and that they should just deal with it.  Of course, this toxic mindset of hers became toxic and contribute to Isra's fate. However, telling a story of different generations with different women dealing with inequality gives the world an insight of their reality.