The Pearl that Broke its Shell

Summary:

Kabul, 2007. Rahima and her four sisters live with their mother and father, who often seeks solace in opium to forget the horrors of war. Girls rarely go to school, and leaving home without a male companion is forbidden. Their only hope is the ancient custom of bacha push, according to which Rahima can be transformed into a boy by the time she reaches marriageable age. As a boy, she will be able to go to school freely, shop, and accompany her sisters out and about.
She is not the first in her family to experience the freedom unknown to women. A century earlier, her great-great-grandmother, Shekiba, became a guard in the palace in Kabul, where she guarded the king’s harem. With a disfigured face, having lost those closest to her early in a severe conflict with her despotic relatives, she must find her place in a world that has no mercy for her.
“The Pearl That Broke Its Shell” follows the dramatic fates of these two women, separated by time. Being a man in Muslim society is the only path to freedom. But once they have tasted it, the two women must once again become submissive wives whose only task is to bear sons.