The Girls of Riyadh

An unknown girl in her early twenties decides to narrate the story of her friends. She is like a modern Scheherazade that narrates these stories every weekend. Her motivation is to revenge the tyranny of life and the society against her friends. Each chapter in the novel starts with a piece of poetry, a verse from the Quran, or lyrics from a famous song that captured the idea of the chapter.

The narrator sends e-mails from her internet group to the subscribers. Those e-mails as the narrator forecasts in the novel stir the media especially popular newspapers in Saudi like Al-Riyadh, Al-Watan and Al-Jazeerah which happened in real life after the novel was published. This kind of forecasting added reality and intrigue to the novel. In one segment, the narrator says that she will probably be interviewed on Al-Arabiya TV by one of the most important interviewers in the Arab World: Turki Al-Dakheel (his style is similar to Tim Sebastian in Hard Talk on BBC or Ted Koppel on ABC news) which also took place.

The novel speaks of 4 Saudi girls who are studying at the university in Riyadh, the Capital of Saudi Arabia: Sadeem, Qamrah, Lamees and Mashael (her name is similar to Michelle in pronunciation. She is half Saudi and half American. Her American mother and friends prefer to call her Michelle).

The four girls were bound by a strong friendship despite their differences. Each one of them went into her own failures except Lamees who succeeded in both her professional career and her love life. She got married to a man of her choosing and went with her husband to Canada to get her Boards in Medicine. Lamees was the fortune teller of the group. She was consulted by her friends about their future matches and emotional relationships. At one point in the novel she had to sever her friendship with a girl called Fatima due to religious differences. Fatima was from the Shiites minority while Lamees belonged to the Sunnites majority. Lamees liked Fatima’s brother who was studying Medicine at the same University, but the relation had to end abruptly after they were both caught in a café by the Police of Morals and Virtue (dating is not allowed in Saudi and is an offense punishable by Men of Religion). Her father was more like her friend and was very understanding. He insisted that she never meet anyone outside the university in the future. Fatima’s brother, on the other hand, suffered at the hands of the Moral Police and his suffering was compounded since he was a Shiites.

Lamees had a kind heart. She helped her friends solve their problems and supported them in times of need. For example, she taught her ill-treated friend, Qamrah, how to use the internet, send e-mails and chat online to break through the isolation that was imposed upon her after she was divorced and was left with a baby.

The story of Qamrah who married Rashid after an arranged citing where the two families allowed the prospective husband to see the girl only once to decide whether he liked her or not and then if he did, he would marry her. There was no dating, no exchange of ideas or thoughts. “See the girl once and make up your mind!” The girl also used the same chance to see the man and give her opinion. Since they both agreed, their families proceeded with the marriage. The story unfolded with this beginning as the narrator continued to describe the wedding of Qamrah and how the tape for the walk-down the aisle music got stuck which symbolically signaled the failure of that marriage. The newly wed went to Chicago so Rashid could finish his postgraduate studies in electronic commerce. Seven nights passed and he did not care about his wife’s feelings and stayed away from her without touching her. The quarrels started in the end and reached a climax when Rashid declared his hate to his new wife. He eventually forced her to give up her hijab and she did in the hope she could win his heart (Moslem women are supposed to wear lose garments that did not reveal the silhouette of their bodies and they should not reveal any body parts except their face and hands). When he saw her without hijab, he thought she looked very ugly and asked her to wear the Hijab again to hide the ugliness. Qamrah loved Rashid despite his cruelty. When she learned of his betrayal with an American-Japanese woman called Carry, she lost her mind. She insisted on meeting the mistress and Carry mocked her by calling Rashid in front of her. Qamrah in return revenged or may be she thought it was revenge when she stopped taking her contraceptive pill. She became pregnant. In the back of her mind, she thought she could change the behavior of her husband through pregnancy as her mother advised her. When Rashid found out she was pregnant, he slapped her and sent her back to Riyadh followed up with her divorce paper. Her second tragedy unfolded when Qamrah used the first name of Rashid’s father to name her new baby in a last attempt to win the sympathy of her husband (it is a tradition in Saudi that babies are first-named after the first name of their grandparents as a gesture of love and respect). The husband did not care and his family showed callous reactions as they were not concerned with that new baby. Qamrah became a single parent and she lived at her father’s house isolated. Her family prevented her from going out since she was divorced and such actions from a divorced woman may bring her ill-reputation. Divorced women in their opinion only brought problems. But her friends managed to get her out of that unbearable jail every now and then.


Sadeem’s story was not less tragic than that of Qamrah. This girl, who was raised by her father as her mother died soon after her birth, would lose her first love and the second one. She revenged both through her marriage to her cousin Tarik whom she never thought would marry despite his strong feelings towards her (Consanguineous marriages are discouraged by Islam but are not prohibited. In a society that separates men from women in all social gatherings, there is no chance to see a woman except those who are relatives which is another reason why consanguineous marriages make a big share of all marriages in Saudi). Her first emotional tragedy was caused by her fiancé Walid who deserted her after they were officially wed for a few months and before their wedding party. She gave him herself during one night considering that he was her husband officially despite that the wedding did not take place yet. He suddenly disappeared after that night and never showed up again. He eventually sent her the divorce paper. It was a shock which she blamed on herself as she did not wait till after the wedding party. Sadeem never told her family about that night and she collapsed emotionally onto herself. She believed the reason that Walid divorced her was that he thought she had previous sexual experiences (In Saudi, engagement is different from the West. The man and woman are considered officially engaged when their marital vows are exchanged and documents are signed. The period from the time of signing the documents till the night of the wedding when they practice sex together for the first time is the engagement period. The virginity of the woman is flowered at that night. There is nothing in Islam to prevent them from practicing sex before that night as they are officially wed, but that is considered a big mistake by the society and men usually get the impression that the girl is too easy or she had extra-marital relations with others if she did such a thing. The second shock was caused by Firas whom she met in London while she was recuperating from her first tragedy. She fell in love with him as he did. But his elite position in Saudi and the fact that he never married before prevented him from getting married to a divorced woman as it would have brought him bad gossip which he did not need (divorced women in the Saudi society are associated with ill-reputation especially if they traveled outside the country and met men like what Sadeem did). Firas married one of his relatives. He later called Sadeem and offered to continue the relationship without leaving his wife. Sadeem refused the offer and became more desperate. Her suffering increased as Firas continued to call her. She finally decided to forget all about him and established her own bridal arrangement company which was on its own an irony. Her friends helped her establish the company. In the end, Sadeem found herself in front of her cousin Tarik who adored her and revered her. She found no choice, but to marry him and revenge both men in her past who nearly destroyed her.

Mashael as her real Arabic name or Michelle as her mother and friends used to call her was more realistic and more liberal. On the contrary to her friends, she relatively enjoyed more freedom. Michelle was born to a Saudi father and an American mother. One day, she stumbled into Faisal by coincidence when he asked her along with her girlfriends to allow him to enter the shopping mall with them as a brother (In Saudi, single young men are not allowed to enter certain famous shopping malls to avoid the harassment and flirting they initiate towards women). This brief encounter was the start of mutual love and a happy Valentine’s Day for the first time in her life. After Valentine’s memorabilia spread every where, the university officially decides based on the request of the Police of Morals and Virtue to ban all forms of festivity of Valentine’s Day since it was a Christian event that ignited unvirtuous feelings between boys and girls. The love lasted a year and when Michelle asked Faisal to marry her, he backed off since his mother refused to allow him to marry a girl not of the family choosing and on top of that born to an American mother. She lost her faith in men. After such a shock, she traveled to San Francisco to study in the company of her American cousin. They developed mutual admiration, but things never progressed to frank love. Faced with this confusing relationship, she traveled back to her father who decided to move the whole family to Dubai to avoid the gossip and ill-reputation that haunted his daughter. He was a liberal and adored his American wife who lost her uterus to cancer. They decided to adopt a baby boy whom they called Mish-´al and they nicknamed him Misho. Being forthcoming and simple characterized Michelle’s personality. She hated hypocrisy and lies. When she moved to Dubai, she worked at one of the satellite TV channels owned by the father of her Emirati girlfriend, Jumanah (Emirati belonging to United Arab Emirates where Dubai is located). She succeeded in her work and lived freely. Michelle admired a TV director that worked with her, but remained confused whether she loved him or not. She asked her father if he would allow her to appear on TV as there was an opening for a TV hostess, but he refused and convinced her that her appearance on TV would lead to reverberations that might reach Saudi and his family. He also pointed out to her that he did not want that kind of headache. Michelle did not speak Arabic fluently and always used English words when her Arabic failed her. She revenged from Faisal when she attended his wedding uninvited and left him a message on his cell phone telling him that she was in the ball room. Michelle bewildered him. After some delay, he entered and found Michelle dancing among the girls. He started to worry: “what next?”, but Michelle left before others recognized her. She felt so happy after what she did.

There was one more character that was connected to the four girls: Um Nowayer. In the Arab World, the mother and the father are nicknamed after their offspring as a sign of respect. The offspring name appears preceded by a prefix Abu for the father and Um for the mother. Um Nowayer was a Kuwaiti lady that was married to a Saudi who left her and her son after 15 years of marriage. She opened her house to the girls to meet when they could not find a place to meet. She became a friend to all of them, helped them in times of need and worked sometimes with them. Um Nowayer was in her 39th year, a bald woman who was able to face her only son’s problem with courage. Her son’s name was Nouri, but he was gayish and that made people call him Nowayer which is a feminine name close to Nouri. Consequently, everyone called her Um Nowayer instead of Um Nouri. At first, she did not bear ridicule, but she defied her neighbors and insisted later on being called Um Nowayer. She sought medical treatment of her son’s condition. One doctor told her it is a psychological problem and not a physical one which may be related to the loss of the parental figure in the family. The son eventually grew out of it after two years of psychological treatment.

The title of the novel is full of irony. It was taken from a song by a very famous Saudi singer and the internet address of the group was called “Memoirs Exposed” which is a twist on the name of a famous TV show called “Memoirs Disclosed”. The novel was also full with humor and laughs as the narrator commented on the events with her witty style. For example, she described how the girls danced in the wedding in a hilarious way and the way women looked at each other with jealousy. She also described how men walked in their ugly underwear in the house after marriage and made fun of that.

The novel ended with one success which was the marriage of Lamees to her colleague in Medical School. As it seemed Lamees learnt from the mistakes of her friends and never repeated them. In fact, she planned a strategy to win her colleague’s heart after she saw him and fell in love with him from first sight. She used everything at her disposal to lure him into her net. Her successful strategy culminated with a lovely marriage and a trip to Canada to obtain her boards in Medicine.

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