A hard-hitting reflection of a post-9/11 world, from the perspectives of two different women in Afghanistan and the connection between them. It was a bit of a slow burn, but the friendship culminates in the final third, as a lens from which to view the culture. A powerful novel where there are no black and white solutions to the world we live in.

Thank you Netgalley, the publisher and Gwen Florio.
This is a powerful, wonderful story of a frienship that develops between a Pakistani woman and an American woman who travels to Afghanistan to work with her husband.
We are shown thru the pages the life’s of women in a war torn country, how their bodies are hidden behind burkas but most of all how meaningless woman lives are in those countries.
It is a wonderful story which depicts the different lives in Afghanistan and America.
Highly recommended.

A hard-hitting book about the world of Afghanistan post 9/11. Journalist Gwen Florio has seamlessly merged the lives of 2 women; 1 from Afghanistan, and 1 from the United States. Definitive writing and good character development make this an eminently readable book.

This story had interesting elements and that's what kept me reading. I didn't love the book because I thought the characters were explored only on the surface. Maybe what I would have wanted to know more about is the author's experiences in Afghanistan and how she went about researching for the book. This would have provided more context. I liked the description of life in the markets in Afghanistan and I was touched by the relationship that developed in the end between Farida and Gul.