Daughters of Iraq by Revital Shiri-Horowitz

A novel of three women who were staunch believers in their families and their religion.

Daughters of Iraq allows the reader into the lives of Farida, Nao, and Violet.  Their lives were shared through everyday situations, through diaries, and through memories.  Each woman had a dream of her own, but they all had their family and their religion as the base of all of their dreams.  You learn how each woman is different yet the same. The descriptions of the characters in terms of physical as well emotional is phenomenal...that definitely is the strong point of the novel.  Shiri-Horowitz's writing is flawless.

I really enjoyed learning about each woman.  You will be able to clearly visualize each one of them as their stories unfold.  A few poignant  pages that contained a letter from Noa's father could apply to any son or daughter and will make you do some strong intro-spection....it actually brought tears to my eyes.   Learning about the immigration from Iraq to Israel  and information about the Jewish holidays and celebrations was truly educational. 

The only negative for me was that I couldn't keep all the characters straight, but the author thoughtfully placed a glossary indicating which character was which and in what chapter they were introduced.  She also had a dictionary with explanations of the words and expressions used throughout the book.

The book definitely held my interest, and even though the difficulty of identifying who was who did cause a stumbling block for me, I am rating the book a 5/5 simply because of the exceptional content and lesson learned from each of the women.  I eventually did figure out the connection between everyone.  ENJOY!!!