Every year we choose a month to read a biography for our Gables Book Club discussion. It just so happened that I am Malala appeared in my BookBub feed This was an eye-opening read for sure.
Malala Yousafzai is a Pashtun girl from the Swat Valley in Pakistan. Born in 1997 to a father committed to education and a mother who adhered to the Pashtun ways, Malala is the personification of what we would wish for all the girls held hostage in a regime where women don't count for much beyond bearing children and keeping house. As her father, Ziauddin, struggled to establish schools in his homeland, he also encouraged his daughter to become as learned as he would have if she had been born a male. Ziauddin was convinced that the "power of the sword and pen" was eclipsed only by the power of women.
Malala, with her curiosity and her ravenous desire to read was the top student in her class. It was at this time that the Taliban arrived in her village. The terror that she felt was acerbated by the fact that all the schools for girls were closed. As described in the book, one cannot even comprehend the tragedy and horror that were inflicted on the people. She and her family were forced from there home because of the bombings and killings. During this time, at age 12, Malala began writing a blog that the BBC published. She and her father also were featured in a documentary. It was evident that she was articulate and mature beyond her years.
When the family returned home after 3 months, they found that the school had actually been used as a hideout for the Pakastani army against the Taliban - a truly defiant act. Returning to school was a bit of normalcy for the girls, despite the fact that they needed to be ever vigilant as to their travels back and forth. It was on the way home one day in 2012 that Taliban attacked the "bus" on which Malala was riding and shouted, "Who is Malala?" and then proceeded to shoot her in the face.
Through a series of fortuitous moves from street to hospitals and, finally being flown to Birmingham, England, Malala began the recovery and healing process. And with not capitulating to the mores of her country, she has never hidden her face, a face that has become the face of her nation. At 16 she stood defiantly in front of the United Nations Youth Assembly and spoke eloquently in support of education for women. What an impressive young woman she is. This is a must read for an understanding of just how horrible the actions of the terrorists is. It is written at a level that could and should be included in every school's curriculum.
OOPS! With all the preparations, enjoyment, and cleanup from Christmas, I neglected to post a book. This was the December selection for the Gables BC and although it was an easy read, it did elicit much discussion. The premise is a common one - do you really know who your spouse is?
Will and Iris Griffith have what seems to be the perfect marriage. The novel opens with Will giving Iris a very beautiful and expensive Cartier ring to celebrate an anniversary and her anticipated pregnancy. Will is off to present at a cybersecurity conference in Orlando and Iris to her job as a school psychologist. But then the unthinkable happens, an airplane crash brings news to Iris that her husband was on the plane that crashed en route to Seattle. Startled at the news and even more puzzled Iris denies vehemently that her husband was on that plane and there had to be a mistake. She digs out the brochure for the conference and calls the hotel venue in Orlando only to find that the conference is totally fictional.
From this point the suspense builds as Iris finds a newly written life insurance policy for $2.5 million.
The reader begins to get a very uneasy feeling when Iris meets with the airline representatives and questions so many of their actions. With her parents and brother in town, she embarks on a serious fact-finding expedition that takes her to Seattle. Was her husband having an affair? Did he have another family in the Seattle area? What was the connection since Will was from Tennessee, or was he? She and her brother Dave set out to the west coast to find out
At the community memorial service for the victims, she meets Corban, a friend of Will's that he met a the gym. Corban insinuates himself into Iris' life as a friend and one who wants to help her work through her grief. And then strange occurrences happen - Will's briefcase is found (how did it survive the crash?), she begins to receive phone calls from unidentified numbers, and then texts. She is pushed to investigate them all despite being cautioned by her new found friend, protectorate, and lawyer, who lost his wife and daughter in the plane crash.
The Marriage Lie is suspense filled and a page turner. Although parts of it were predictable, there were other parts that left me stumped until the end when the answers are revealed. For the most part the characters were well delineated and the plot tight. I do question what happened to Iris' parents and brother who played such an integral role in the first part of the novel and why Iris, being trained as a psychologist, couldn't see through the lies and stories of not only her husband, but of some of his friends. But a good read for a winter's snowy day.
