I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced

I read this book this weekend. It's a quick read.
What else can you expect from a 12 year old?
Seriously. This is a true story, a memoir, written by a 12-year-old Yemeni divorcee.

It sounds just awful, doesn't it?
If you google her name, you will happen upon Glamour and CNN stories about her rape and beating. And you'll wonder how her parents could ever let it happen. You'll wonder what her father was thinking arranging the marriage of his 10-year-old daughter to a 30-year-old man. You'll wonder what that 30-year-old man's mother was thinking when she encouraged him to sleep with the girl. You'll wonder what kind of world they live in.

You may even stay awake at night, wondering.

The thing is, it's a story of triumph. A story of the resiliency of a pure-hearted girl. A story of right and wrong and how sometimes the simple truths which should be so obvious get muddled and mucked by grown-ups. There's no real excuse for it.

And Nujood does a pretty good job of explaining what happened, without causing the reader to pity her or her family or her situation-- and without causing the reader to hate her parents. A pretty amazing feat considering what she lived through.

But then, if you haven't noticed yet, Nujood is a pretty amazing girl.

It's a good book. It's interesting. It's not too descriptive, and yet it is fascinating all the same.

Here's the link to it on Amazon, in case you'd like a copy for yourself: I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced.