This book was absolutely fantastic. I've already added it to our library collection and will recommend it to students.

I received this free eARC novel from NetGalley. This is my honest review.

I've had this book for forever and finally got around to reading it. Overall it was a decent novel. I'm a very 21st century girl, who speaks my mind and I'm very independent, so this life style that Leena goes through every day? I wouldn't be able to survive.

To have to depend on a man and have a man twerk me how my life is going to be literally makes me shudder. I'm very proud of Leena for taking charge of her life and finding a legal way to change her future.

There is a lot of religion in this book. I don't practice any religion in my own country, so I was really lost when the book started talking about the Islamic culture. For those bits I just had to skip over because no amount of reading and re-reading was going to help me make any sense of it.

Overall I'm glad I got a chance to read this book. I was definitely educated about this culture and it made me appreciate my life and the freedoms that I have.

Leena is about to graduate high school...an exciting time for most girls, but Leena lives in Ridyah, Saudi Arabia, where women live lives dominated by and segregated from men. With her political activist father in jail, her mother struggling to keep them fed, and her best friend recklessly breaking all the rules, Leena has enough on her plate thinking about now instead of a future comprised of either fleeing the country to freedom, going to university on a scholarship, or getting married to a man she doesn't love. Then half-American Daria arrives, and turns Leena's world upside down.

Ever read one of the feminist books from the 1950s and early 1960s? Where the housewives feel caged, stuck and unable to escape the confines of society but don't know why they feel such a deep, burning anger? This book is that multiplied by a billion, with a heavy dose of extremist religion added.

Leena is filled with anger—at society, at missing opportunities, at the unfairness and ridiculousness of everything. This isn't about covering up and wearing a veil, or even really being segregated and modest around men. It's about choice and freedom. The ability to choose simple things for oneself, to make decisions and go places without being chaperoned by a male relative. To learn to drive—and to travel without a guardian. To have your cell phone untracked and its camera left intact. To not have to walk the balance between staying fashionable for your friends (all women) while projecting modesty to avoid being sold out to the police. To not have to worry about being shaved or stoned for immodesty.

This is such an amazing book about the lives of girls in Saudi Arabia, one that I really recommend everyone pick up.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

DRIVING BY STARLIGHT by Anat Deracine is set in modern day Saudi Arabia and revolves around life for young women there. The author herself grew up in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia although her university studies were in England and the US where she now lives. Deracine is very effective in conveying the oppressiveness of the patriarchal society while also introducing characters who hold a variety of views regarding religious rules and their enforcement. She raised many questions for me and my biggest reaction to DRIVING BY STARLIGHT was wishing that I could talk about this title to someone (like the characters Leena or her friend Mishail) who had actually lived the experience.

DRIVING BY STARLIGHT, with its beautiful cover, is an emotional, suspenseful story that received starred reviews from both Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. Its lexile is a relatively low 860 and I think this would make for a very interesting choice for literature circles, particularly if it could be paired with a non-fiction work like Daring to Drive. Deracine (a pseudonym) refers to the efforts to secure the right to drive for women in Saudi Arabia and raises many other questions about women's rights. Some of these have been reflected in a recent Vanity Fair article as well as in this New York Times editorial. Another option would perhaps be to pair it with the graphic novel titled Dare to Disappoint by Özge Samancı about growing up in Turkey. An excellent choice for adding diversity to the collection.

Links in live post:
Vanity Fair https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/05/meet-haifaa-al-mansour-the-saudi-woman-challenging-riyadh
NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/25/opinion/saudi-arabia-salman-womens-rights.html

Leena is a young woman living in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, shortly after the Arab Spring. Her father has been jailed for rebelling against the current government, leaving Leena without her usual male "guardian"--so the 11-year-old son of the headmistress of her all-girls high school has filled that role. Leena is smart--especially in law--and hopes to escape the restrictive Saudi society after high school. She's not allowed to drive or to go anywhere unattended by a guardian. She must wear an abaya and cannot have any contact with boys. Even the pictures in her biology textbook are censored. Leena has a best friend, Mishail, whose father is the minister of the interior. When a Saudi American, Daria, transfers to their high school and both Mishael and Leena develop feelings for her cousin Ahmed, their friendship is upended. Ahmed seems interested in both of them--but he also deeply admires Leena's father, and has his own form of rebellion planned. Using her ingenuity, her knowledge of the law, and the system itself, Leena conspires to secure a better future for herself, and if she's lucky, maybe her friends, too.

This is an incredible story and an eye-opening book that imparts so much knowledge about life in Saudi Arabia after the Arab Spring without ever feeling like it's "teaching" its reader. The wide variety of personalities and political and religious beliefs of the characters means that everyone feels distinctly developed, and no one stands out as a stereotype. We see not only the restrictions placed on women, but we also get a glimpse of those placed on men who don't conform to what Saudi society expects of them.

A much-needed story, perspective, and voice in YA.

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for my fair and honest review.

A fascinating first person story about the life of a teenage girl in Saudi Arabia.
Librarian: Yes, I'll recommend It for purchase. In the school library community we talk a lot about the importance of providing students with books that allow them to spend time inside the thoughts and experiences of someone from another culture, To that end we see lots of books about minority communities and about people living in countries in Europe or Asia. However, outside of a handful of memoirs, the Middle East is rarely represented. This book hopefully signals a change to all that. It provides a beautiful, and heartfelt look at the lives of teenage girls growing up In Saudi Arabia. Absolutely worth picking up.
Reader: Set in Saudi Arabia in 2011 (right after the Arab spring) Driving by Starlight explores what it is to be a teenage girl growing up in a world where every action is a crime. The world is terrible. And yet it's beautiful at the same time. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a look into a world that most of us can (thankfully) only imagine.