The "Velvet" Class of Saudi Arabia

I wanted to look at another Middle Eastern themed book today.

Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea has an interesting story behind the book. It began as a type of blog.  Every week, Alsanea would send out stories to subscribers about her friends, whose names were changed in the book. Each story builds to the larger story of the book, it isn't just a collection of random stories.


The publishing group sums up the book as so:

When Rajaa Alsanea boldly chose to open up the hidden world of Saudi women—their private lives and their conflicts with the traditions of their culture—she caused a sensation across the Arab world. Now in English, Alsanea’s tale of the personal struggles of four young upper-class women offers Westerners an unprecedented glimpse into a society often veiled from view. Living in restrictive Riyadh but traveling all over the globe, these modern Saudi women literally and figuratively shed traditional garb as they search for love, fulfillment, and their place somewhere in between Western society and their Islamic home.

In each chapter, before she starts that week's story, she responses to her readers and also provides a lyric, poetry, or line from the Quran.

This blog turned book caused quite the buzz in the media in Saudi, which can be seen in her commentary in the beginning of each chapter.

After its debut in the Middle East and the author's tough decision, it was released in America.

It was definitely an interesting read because of the life this took on in the media.

Girls of Riyadh is more of a young adult read that talks about four friends in the wealthy or "velvet" class. These women are in their 20s and are experiencing things like marriages, school, and discrimination.

As I've read in reviews, it isn't an accurate depiction of a typical Saudi woman's life.  I believe, however, it is a good book to read just for what it went though in the media and that she does real life accounts of her friends lives.  It was a nice addition that at the end of the book she told what her friends thought of this project, how some of them helped, and how some of the friendships were severed because of it.

If you want to read more about the book or find an excerpt, head over to Google Books.