The Bookish Mindset

Overview:

Title: A Woman is No Man
Author: Etaf Rum
Published: 2019
Genre: Literary
Themes: Immigration, Domestic Violence

One sentence summary: Multiple generations uphaul lives for the hope of more, but hope isn’t always enough.

One sentence review: Literary perfection, just trust me and read it.

Review:

Moving to another country without the support of friends of family will always be equal parts unsettling and alarming. Isra and Fareeda both feel it from different generations. Their stories are unfolded through Deya and they’ll stick with you.

If you’ve read this you’ll understand when I say I don’t even know where to begin with reviewing this one.

This read like someone’s memoir in the sense that it feels too personal to review, too tender, too delicate. We have flashbacks to simpler times, different times, and multiple points of view that build the story.

It’s literary perfection: family and heartbreak. This book will break you. It’s powerful and earth shattering.

Rum’s debut is outstanding and if you haven’t read it yet then I strongly encourage you to. Just trust me and read it.

If reading more is something that you’re looking at doing this year then should check my reading challenge out here! Read nine books from nine prompts over the first six months of the year and be entered into a draw to win a bundle of bookish goodies.

If you’d like to get yourself a copy, you can support local bookshops while doing so on Bookshop.org with this link here.

If you like what you’ve read and would like to access more content, I’d love if you could take a look at my patreon and consider supporting my content on there too.

And don’t forget to check out my other blogs and reviews – you can find books with similar themes in the same folder link below, or click back onto blogs to see the whole offering.

Last updated 24/01/2025