Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Excerpt from Guest House for Young Widows by Azadeh Moaveni, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reviews |  Beyond the Book |  Readalikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

Guest House for Young Widows by Azadeh Moaveni

Guest House for Young Widows

Among the Women of ISIS

by Azadeh Moaveni
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (3):
  • First Published:
  • Sep 10, 2019, 352 pages
  • Reviewed by BookBrowse Book Reviewed by:
    Karen Lewis
  • Genres & Themes
  • Publication Information
  • Rate this book

About this Book

Print Excerpt


A few months into her existence as a specter at school, Nour told her parents she'd had enough. "At least finish and get your certificate," her mother said. But Nour could not see how it was possible to learn anything when she felt herself reviled by the teachers. Nothing entered her head anyway, not how to graph an atom or the qualities of a hypotenuse. What was the point?

She quit school in 2009. Now, instead, she spent her mornings at home helping her mother clean and cook. After lunch she read the Quran. The neighborhood mosque had a prayer room where girls could meet to talk and discuss religion, and it was here that the imam's wife befriended her.

Nour liked the imam's wife's spirited laugh and genuine conversation, the small lessons she gave that illuminated aspects of the religion—lessons about the mindset to bring to prayer and the importance of charity, and how it would ennoble a person. She told Nour stories about the prophets, about Moses and Jesus, and most of all, stories about the Prophet Muhammad's qualities. The Prophet said: "Guard yourself from the Hellfire even with half a date in charity. If he cannot find it, then with a kind word." Nour could manage half a date, and feeling like she could help others, even when she herself had so little, was heartening. She wasn't as powerless as she thought. When the imam's wife invited other women over for a circle of discussion, Nour was often too shy to say very much herself. But she listened avidly and took it all in.

Excerpted from Guest House for Young Widows by Azadeh Moaveni. Copyright © 2019 by Azadeh Moaveni. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The God of the Woods
    The God of the Woods
    by Liz Moore
    Bestselling author Liz Moore's latest novel, The God of the Woods, begins with a disappearance. ...
  • Book Jacket: Becoming Madam Secretary
    Becoming Madam Secretary
    by Stephanie Dray
    Our First Impressions reviewers enjoyed reading about Frances Perkins, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's ...
  • Book Jacket: Everything We Never Had
    Everything We Never Had
    by Randy Ribay
    Francisco Maghabol has recently arrived in California from the Philippines, eager to earn money to ...
  • Book Jacket: There Are Rivers in the Sky
    There Are Rivers in the Sky
    by Elif Shafak
    Elif Shafak's novel There Are Rivers in the Sky follows three disparate individuals separated by ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Rose Arbor
by Rhys Bowen
An investigation into a girl's disappearance uncovers a mystery dating back to World War II in a haunting novel of suspense.
Book Jacket
The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters
A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl disappears, leaving a mystery unsolved for fifty years.
Win This Book
Win My Darling Boy

My Darling Boy by John Dufresne

The story of of a man whose son collapses into addiction and vanishes into the chaotic netherworld of southern Florida.

Enter

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

D T the B O W the B

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.