Samira and Samir

This book was a very good read. I was enticed in the book from the moment i started it to the moment i put it down. It is a story about a father who wants a boy so desperately that he bring up his first child a girl' as a boy. Her parents didn't have anymore children, so her father continue to treat Samira as a boy and taught her to fight, ride horses, shoot and many more men tasks. This is a very difficult senario to be in for Samira/Samir and the older she got the more difficult it became for her. Her father didn't have to bear the affects of this, as he died when Samira was still a child. It only became difficult when she fell in love with a friend that she realised that the effects of being a girl will change her future. The problems arised when the girl started developing into a female that her destinity had to be changed and only Samira on her own had to decide what she wanted to be at the time and what she wanted to become in the future. Samira showed courage, strength and showed those people that identify women as weak that they can be as strong as men are. Samira became her mother's strength and she became her grandfathers missing arm. She wasn't scared and dealt and acted as men did naturally and found it difficult to behave as a real women when she really had to try too for her love of her friend who became her husband. It is one of the best books i have read and the style of writing is very diffent, but good.

It would be easy to read this book simply as further evidence of the damage caused by gender constrained roles in certain Islamic societies. To do so, though, would diminish the story. What makes this story special is the impact of choice, and individual spirit. Is Samira a victim, or is she triumphant? Do the lessons she teaches others as Samir, about bravery and about confidence provide them with options? Is Samira ultimately the only person able to soar free of certain cultural restraints or can others do it as well? It is this hope, this possibility that enables the story to finish on a positive note. Wherever Samira is, and whatever she does, she has had the confidence to move beyond traditional roles. Read the book, and decide for yourself. Highly recommended. Jennifer Cameron-Smith