TOO SOON by Betty Shamieh

Pub date: Jan. 28th, 2025
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Rating: 3 / 5


How does history define the roles you play in life?

Zoya fled Palestine after The 6 Day War displaced her people in 1948. Naya came of age in the divisive streets of Detroit and San Francisco in the 1960s and 70s. Arabella, a Shakespearean director in New York, has returned to the West Bank to stage an ambitious theatre production in 2012. Three generations of Palestinian-American women– grandmother, mother, and daughter; three vastly different experiences navigating the world; one raw and honest narrative of identity, family, and history.

TOO SOON is a passionate debut that brings women's generational and cultural issues to the forefront. The book is told in 3 POVs, primarily following present day Arabella with chapters documenting Zoya and Naya's early and later lives. The alternating chapters gives readers an opportunity to connect to each woman's unique struggles, and also clearly see how generational curses and gifts manifest. While a prominent focus of the book is on the women's ties to their Palestinian heritage and family upbringing, the actual development of the characters throughout the book is quite minimal. Some chapters read more like diary entries with freeform reflection and ranting. Others have more action but the sequence of events can feel disjointed or slow at times. Readers who enjoy literary fiction with a focus on womanhood, motherhood, migration, politics, and narratives of return will likely enjoy Shamieh's first novel.


(Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review!)

too soon is an intergenerational story of three palestinian women as they struggle with identity, motherhood and the multiple crossroads of life. the primary narrative follows arabella, a theater director approaching a midlife crisis when she’s asked to direct a new interpretation of hamlet in the west bank. alongside arabella’s story, we also follow her grandmother, zoya, who emigrates to america as a result of the nakba, and arabella’s mother, naya, who resigns herself to an early wifehood and motherhood to respect her parents’ wishes.

the story is easy to read and i enjoyed the author’s voice and perspective. the way the complex gender dynamics of the culture are portrayed are a real strength of this novel, as well as the struggle between both ‘fitting in’ to give yourself opportunities and ‘standing out’ to represent your culture. i struggled with the pacing of this book though, which is a slow start and a lot of info-dumping. what would or could be the most emotionally impactful moments of the narrative (the play’s performance and a major character death) are delivered in the epilogue.

i wish the structure of this worked for me more because it’s a beautiful novel with immersive writing and interesting themes. i’d still recommend it with the caveat that the plot and pacing doesn’t live up to the heartfelt quality of the writing.

Beautifully written funny warm characters that really stand out.I enjoyed Too Soon from beginning to end.#NetGalley #avidpress

While I'm typically a thriller reader, I've really enjoyed a few books lately that are considered *women's fiction* like The Wedding People, Madwoman, etc. The synopsis for Too Soon drew me in, so I requested it.

This could be a great fit for readers who enjoy:
- learning about other cultures through fiction
- books about theater (the main character is a theater director)
- multiple generations of strong female characters written with some humor

Why it didn't work for me:
- I'm learning I'm not into books about Hollywood, acting, theater, etc.
- The writing seemed a bit choppy at times, especially in Arabella's chapters.

Unfortunately this one didn't click for me, but I can see how it has such great reviews so far. I'm definitely an outlier with early reviewers as it has over a 4-star average on both StoryGraph and GoodReads as of December 2024.

I really enjoyed this story. Early on, I felt like I got a really good sense of the characters and I was very invested in their story and seeing how things would play out (especially given the historical lens that this novel operates under). This is a rich and expansive story that explores many of the first hand experiences and consequences of the conflict in Palestine. Getting to witness a first-hand account of these events was really harrowing and the author did a great job of really placing us in the midst of the action and drama and fear that was experienced. Through multi-POVs, we are given insights into 3 generations of women in one family, and explore how they feel and operate in the diaspora. Throughout the novel we get to directly see the different ways that trauma and war has impacted their lives and relationships--and we get to explore the different ways that generational trauma has impacted how the function with each other and how they each approach life and love. This was a very moving story that intricately explores some of the cultural sides of Palestine while also being honest about many of the complex feelings around their history while also weaving in the everyday and interpersonal complexities of life. I think the conversations around womanhood and motherhood were so interesting, especially with the added lens of cultural pressures and generational pressures, and I really felt invested in seeing how each of our FMCs would approach these topics as we moved through their lives. There is rage and frustration that is pivotal to the story and these characters that I really felt for and empathized with, and seeing how they are able to come to terms with themselves and each other was really moving.

I will say that, while I found the plot interesting and each POV added a lot to the overall narrative and my understanding of their experiences, I do think that there were several parts of this book where the pacing was a bit slower than I would have liked. There were some chapters where it felt like we completely stopped the momentum of the book and this made for a staggering reading experience.
I also wanted to dive deeper into Arabella and her relationship with Aziz. I felt like their progression felt a bit jarring to read. And I think part of that is because they spent a chunk of time off-page talking on the phone and getting to know each other, but I didn't really feel like I had a good sense of him or how they were together and then the Aziz we met felt too disconnected from Arabella at times.

Thanks to NetGalley and Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster for providing me with a digital review copy of this story in exchange for an honest review.

I'm eager to discuss this intergenerational tale of Palestinian and Palestinian-American women with someone. Get yourself access to an ARC, maybe on NetGalley like I did, and let me know what you think.

The three women are Zoya, who was a well-off mother of nine at the time of the Nakba. She eventually made it to Detroit with her kids to meet her husband who had already set up shop there with a liquor store. Naya is Zoya's second youngest, the darkest skin of the giant brood, and the last girl before the only boy, Ghassan. Naya is married off at a young age and raises her daughter Arabella (and Arabella's younger brothers) in California. Arabella is a thirty-five year old theater director in NYC with a stalled career. Her speciality is reinterpretations of Shakespeare plays. Despite recognizing the colonialism of Shakespeare's power over theater, she's not one to acknowledge her Palestinian/Arab identity.

The three women are rough--Zoya is violent, Naya is so competitive she ruins her most important friendship, and Arabella is selfish. I typically have a hard time with unlikeable narrators, but I guess these three are compelling enough that I stuck with it. As usual, the NetGalley Shelf app ate my bookmarks, so I don't have specific notes to help me talk about what I read.

I wonder if some of the complications with the three women are symptoms of generational trauma from the family's cruel and senseless displacement from their homeland. As an American citizen, Arabella is allowed to visit Palestine, but she's subject to interrogations, delays, and checkpoints. She dates a Palestinian-American man, who, though he's seen it all at Doctors Without Borders, loses it when two boys are shot in the legs by IDF soldiers to prevent them for becoming players in a Palestinian football league. It's the same senseless cruelty of the Nakba, rained on children.

Arabella speaks Arabic, but she's fair skinned and assimilated. She wants her successes to be about her, rather than about her Arabness, as if they're two different things. There's tragedy upon tragedy in and around the story, but still, it ends on a hopeful note, which is what is always and ever amazing about Palestinians in the struggle for freedom.

I think all of these characters were well written and it was interesting to follow along in their lives, minds, and world. It was beautiful written and overall a well rounded narrative

Too Soon touches on so many things; the mass displacement & erasure of Palestinians over the decades, lost love & sexual desires, life as a refugee in America, motherhood & arranged marriages, generational traumas that echo over time. It’s beautifully complex and with such immersive writing I felt like I knew the three women deeply, personally.

We have Arabella, 35 and a theater director in New York who is waiting to make her big break on Broadway. But she has the lingering feeling she’s slowly missing the train to motherhood and wondering if that’s a path she even wants to explore. When an opportunity arises to direct a play in Palestine she feels the tug to return to her family’s homeland. It also helps her grandmother has conspired to set her up with a doctor which might be her answer to that lingering feeling.

Zoya is the matriarch of the family, a woman who pushed the boundaries in school until she was pulled out to work by her father. She’s married off at 15 and rises from her meager farm life to that of socialite - where she still struggles to fit in. Soon enough an attack - commonly referred to now as The 6 Day War - takes the rug out from under her family. After a decade of living with her father, she finally embarks on her journey to American with her 7 daughters and son in tow.

Naya is the youngest of Zoya’s daughters and the one that defies her the most. In her struggles to fit in with her American classmates and overcome language barriers she begins to gravitate to Black Panther meetings and don an Afro. In an effort to “help” her daughter Zoya arranges for Naya to be pulled from school and married off at 15 just as she had been.

I think this novel is an example of why I love reading so much. I could see parts of myself but also see how vastly different their life experiences were from my own. It is a beautiful thing to experience someone else’s life for a bit and to widen your scope of understanding fellow human beings.

This is a beautifully written story. I enjoyed all three narrators’ perspectives. This book does a good job of connecting all three characters through their art and generational trauma.