Broken Moon
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
I WILL NEVER HAVE A HUSBAND, BUT I HAVE THE BEST BROTHER IN THE WORLD. YOUR BREATH ON MY CHEEK -- ON MY SCAR -- FELT LIKE THE BREATH OF ALLAH.
Nadira is spoiled goods. Scars from a beating she received for a crime that her older brother allegedly committed tell the world that she is worth less than nothing -- except to her little brother, Umar, who sees beauty in her scars and value in her.
But Umar is gone -- perhaps kidnapped or maybe sold. All Nadira knows is that Umar has been taken into the desert to ride camels for rich sheiks. He could be lost to her forever.
For Umar, Nadira will risk everything. So she disguises herself as a boy and searches out the men who took him. They are not hard to find, and soon she, too, is headed to the desert to be a camel jockey.
Life in the desert is more brutal than Nadira imagined. All she has to protect her and the boys she meets are a bit of chai tea, some stories, and the hope that she has enough of both to keep going until she finds Umar.
BROKEN MOON IS A SPELLBINDING, LYRICAL TALE THAT WILL CAPTURE READERS, HEARTS AND SOULS.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Antieau's (Mercy, Unbound) moving story set in modern-day Pakistan unfolds in diary entries written by 18-year-old Nadira, addressed to her six-year-old brother, Umar. Gradually, she describes the misfortunes that have befallen her once-happy family, beginning five years ago when Nadira "got hurt." After her eldest brother was accused of raping a village girl, the sentence was "that the father and brothers of the girl got permission to attack" Nadira, leaving her with a moon-shaped scar on her face. Her family then moves to the city of Karachi, where Nadira assists the cook of kind Begum Naseem. After her father dies, Nadira's mother and Umar move in with their mother's cruel brother, Rubel. Nadira's strong, often poetic voice softens the harshness of her situation, and allows readers to experience the sounds, tastes and smells of her native land. She is one of few women who can read, and makes frequent references to Shahrazad (from One Thousand and One Arabian Nights), her role model for bravery. To the gentle gardener who wishes to marry her, Nadira confides for the first time the truth of what happened on the night of her attack: that she was raped. She then disguises herself as a boy in order to rescue Umar, sold as a camel boy by Rubel. It is to the author's credit that she preserves the humanity in these events, characterizing them as realities in a poverty-stricken culture where survival drives people to acts of great horror and also great heroism. Ages 14-up.
