Girls of Riyadh
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  • Published: 1 September 2008
  • ISBN: 9780141030616
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $24.99

Girls of Riyadh

Formats & editions
EBook
1 Sep 2008
Audiobook
21 Aug 2025
Paperback
1 Sep 2008
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Funny and tragic, a novel about the lives of the young people of Saudi Arabia - a world that up to now has been a mystery

Gamrah’s faith in her new husband is not exactly returned …

Sadeem is a little too willing to please her fiancé …

Michelle is half-American and the wrong class for her boyfriend’s family …

While Lamees works hard with little time for love.

The girls of Riyadh are young, attractive and living by Saudi Arabia’s strict cultural traditions. Well, not quite. In-between sneaking out behind their parents’ backs, dating, shopping, watching American TV and having fun, they’re still trying to be good little Muslim girls. That is, pleasing their families and their men.

But can you be a twenty-first century girl and a Saudi girl?
  • Published: 1 September 2008
  • ISBN: 9780141030616
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $24.99
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About the author

Rajaa Alsanea

Rajaa Alsanea grew up in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the daughter of a family of doctors. She currently lives in Chicago where she is a dental graduate student. She is twenty-five years old and this is her first novel.Originally released in Arabic in 2005, Girls of Riyadh was immediately banned in Saudi Arabia due to controversial and inflammatory content. Black-market copies of the novel circulated and the daring originality of Girls of Riyadh continues to create a firestorm all over the Arab world and has been a bestseller across much of the Middle East.

Praise for Girls of Riyadh

Raises important questions about self-respect, tolerance and emotional maturity…lifts the veil of an obscured world

Telegraph Magazine

Brave and surprisingly informative

Guardian

'Highly readable…wonderfully vivid' New Statesman

Irresistible and thought-provoking…an entertaining read: revealing, hilarious and chilling in turn

The Independent
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