"A taut, affecting exploration of a Kuwaiti woman’s struggle to forge her own identity and find freedom amidst crippling pressures to conform."
As eight-year-old girls, three friends made a marriage pact. Now approaching thirty, Dahlia is the only one who remains unmarried and the pressure to conform, to accept a husband, is crippling. Dahlia is desperate to be “unfettered by customs and bonds and the burden of ancestry”, and it’s clear to her that life is much easier for young boys who “would have freedoms my sister and I never contemplated...the freedom to live their lives without constant scrutiny...the freedom to not marry without shame or guilt.” While Dahlia has conformed to her parents’ idea of a suitable career, she remains steadfast in her refusal to marry a man she does not love, and still harbours a desire to pursue her artistic talents, while battling familial and peer pressure, while haunted by the abuse inflicted on her by a family friend.
Dahlia’s intimate, introspective narrative evokes a sense of constriction and conflict with remarkable potency, and readers will applaud her courage and acts of defiance. Thought-provoking, long-lingering and simmering with the strength of the human spirit, this is a powerfully assured debut.
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
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A superb modern day story that is sure to please the reader.
This is a superb novel, in fact perhaps it mirrors someone's life somewhere where the choice has to be decided between doing your own think and making your own way in the world whilst being free to do so versus following your family tradition of arranging your life and future for you.
Dahlia is confronted with both choices and receives much well intended from both sides advising her what to do and she herself must make the choice, not an easy one but one that must be done all the same, and soon!
Set in the background of Kuwait, where the norm is to follow family trends, the story of Dalia is beautifully written of the problems and challenges that she must face and of solving the surmountable family problems that try to tie her to her roots.
A truly magnificent read, and... Read Full Review
A really memorable story, set in an interesting environment, with serious issues at its heart.
Set in modern-day Kuwait, this story features Dahlia and her two friends, young women striving to live modern lives, while still respecting the restrictive culture still prevailing for women in that Arab country. A ‘suitable’ marriage, often arranged by their families is the pinnacle of their ambition as they grow up. But this doesn’t happen for Dahlia. At the beginning of this book, I thought it was going to be a fairly light read, possibly frivolous, concentrating on Dahlia’s efforts to find a husband, but I was very wrong. As the story progresses it becomes deeper and darker as you realise that Dahlia is actually struggling with mental health issues, stemming from a traumatic experience in her early teens. She is ultimately forced to make a life-changing decision about her future.... Read Full Review
A terrific story with a strong 30 something female character living in Kuwait with her family who despairs for her future.
This is a beautifully written story about one young woman in her thirties living in present-day Kuwait. The story goes back and forth in time giving us glimpses of Dahlia’s life, through these snippets of her life we see darker parts of her life such as self-harm and terror. I found the dynamic of her family intriguing, the closeness to the point of suffocation sometimes, and the pressure to have done certain things by a certain age, the very audible thoughts from others that if you have not reached these life goals by a certain age what will happen.... Read Full Review
Featured on BBC Radio 4's Open Book Featured on BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking An ELLE Magazine cultural pick Reviewed in the Observer
'Beautifully written' Joanna Cannon
'Fascinating … full of personality' Guardian
'Brilliant … What a debut' Pandora Sykes
'How could I explain to her that nothing in my life felt real? That in a country like Kuwait, where everyone knew everything about each other, the most monumental thing to ever happen to me was buried and covered over? For the sake of my reputation, my future, my sister's and cousins; the family honor sat on my little shoulders, so no-one could ever know.'
Dahlia has two lives. In one, she is a young woman with a good job, great friends and a busy social life. In the other, she is an unmarried daughter living at home, struggling with a burgeoning anxiety disorder and a deeply buried secret: a violent betrayal too shameful to speak of.
With her thirtieth birthday fast-approaching, pressure from her mother to accept a marriage proposal begins to strain the family. As her two lives start to collide and fracture, all Dahlia can think of is escape: something that seems impossible when she can't even leave the country without her father's consent.
But what if Dahlia does have a choice? What if all she needs is the courage to make it?
Set in contemporary Kuwait, The Pact We Made is a deeply affecting and timely debut about family, secrets and one woman's search for a different life.
The Pact We Made features in the following genres: Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Books with reviews by our Reader Review Panel, Family Drama, General Fiction, Fiction, Recommendations, Romance / Relationship Stories
The Pact We Made is available in Paperback, Hardback
The Pact We Made was written by Layla AlAmmar and published by The Borough Press an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
The Pact We Made has 276 pages
£9.89
