FORBIDDEN LOVE: A Harrowing Story of Love and Revenge in Jordan

I watched the documentary. I think the author knows exactly what she's doing. As a piece of literature I think it deserves 5 stars. Awesomely written. However the validity of the actual story? I'm not so certain about ... honor kills do exist however. I wouldn't write this off as disgusting or "lies" ... it is candid, it is honest and it is most certainly a retelling of 'A' story that occurs and is a mimicry of what actually happens in THE WORLD of that story. Worth reading.

I read this book in 2 hours, I could'nt put it down. Despite that it was a good read there are parts where I thought maybe it was a little exaggerated. I lived in Jordan and know that there are people that are a little more extreme than others. However, I could'nt help the feeling that the story was in some ways fiction. What I did'nt like was the way Arabs in the book were portrayed as being that extreme, there are laws. I definitely would not recommend this book to someone who is not familiar with that part of the world without explaining that it is more fiction than true.

The tragic and haunting events retold by Ms. Khouri are astounding. I cried while reading and have been moved like I never have before by a book. I applaud the author for having the courage and desire to make her story known. Read this if you at all care about the quality of human life.

Honor Lost is a superb and shocking book. It is, first and foremost, a deeply felt memorial to a cherished friend. Honor Lost tells the story of two lifelong girlfriends, one Catholic, the other Muslim, living middle class lives in modern Amman, Jordan. Sheltered, even pampered, Norma and her friend Dalia play at being shopkeepers, but know that their lives are ultimately completely controlled by their fathers and brothers. Dalia's forbidden flirtation with a Catholic man leads the two friends into a double life in which they taste the freedoms that Western women take for granted--afternoons of conversation at a restaurant, telephone calls to boyfriends, and fatally, a picnic in a Jordaninan park. For Western readers, Honor Lost is even more than a dramatic page-turning story of suspense. It also provides a startling glimpse of an ancient culture on a collision course with modernity. No book I have read in the last ten years has spoken more clearly about the dissonance between the traditional Arab world and the West's system of values. Norma Khouri makes it clear that honor killing is a cultural, tribal practice that predates Islam and Christianity, although the Koran is now used (or distorted) to justify it. Through Norma's book, I understood for the first time how deeply threatening America is to the Arab way of life. The portrait of Arab society that Norma draws is of one where men hold absolute control over their families and can enforce that control with beatings and even murder, with the full sanction of the government. Even in "modern, Westernized Jordan" a woman can be killed on the slightest pretext by a relative for the sake of family honor and her killer will face nothing more than a judicial slap on the wrist, if that; more often he will be treated as a hero. America and Europe--with their liberated, scantily clad women charging off to work, making their own way in life with or without men, with or without the approval of their fathers and brothers--do indeed threaten the Arab world, the traditional Arab family, and the honor measured in the subservience of their women, that traditional Arab men hold as their highest right. In a culture that views killing family members as a "cleansing" honorable ritual, it seems inevitable that the encounter with Western values and modernity would engender a violent response. British pressure in the 19th century forced the Ottoman empire's Arab provinces to curtail their thriving African slave trade, and the routine use of chattels as concubines and household servants. Will Western pressure similarly bring about a change in the treatment of women? It seems to be happening to some extent already, but after reading Honor Lost, I realized that the true liberation of Arabia's women will likely come only with a fight and only after the death of many more young women like Dalia.

This is a passionate read about the loss of Norma Khouri's best friend to a primitive custom that defies all rational thought. This true story will break your heart, leading you on a mission to work to ensure such crimes do not go unpunished.For the sake of humanity, I recommend this book with as much enthusiasam as I can possibly muster. Jean Sasson