Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Feb 2014, 304 pages
Paperback:
Jul 2015, 304 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Rory L. Aronsky
Buy This Book
From a former CIA officer comes the riveting account of a royal Middle Eastern family exiled to the American suburbs.
When her father is killed in a coup, 15-year-old Laila flees from the war-torn middle east to a life of exile and anonymity in the U.S. Gradually she adjusts to a new school, new friends, and a new culture, but while Laila sees opportunity in her new life, her mother is focused on the past. She's conspiring with CIA operatives and rebel factions to regain the throne their family lost. Laila can't bear to stand still as an international crisis takes shape around her, but how can one girl stop a conflict that spans generations?
J.C. Carleson delivers a fascinating account of a girl - and a country - on the brink, and a rare glimpse at the personal side of international politics.
PRETENDING
My brother is the King of Nowhere.This fact doesn't matter to anyone except my family— a rapidly shrinking circle of people who Used to Be. And, even for us, there are surprisingly few perks. Now we sit in our airless apartment, curtains closed against the outside world, pretending.
My mother pretends that nothing has changed.
She is good at this charade. Her every gesture oozes money and power now long gone. They wouldn't let her take her closets full of designer clothes when we left our country, but she still spends hours on her appearance— pretending that photographers might still want to take pictures of her every outing, even dressed as she is now in J. C. Penney sale-rack clothes and drugstore lipstick. Pretending her old life didn't die along with my father.
My brother is six.
I try to remember six. What it might feel like at that age to be told that you are the exiled ruler. That you deserve to be king. That someday soon you ...
The Tyrant’s Daughter vividly represents the teenage experience, not only in forging one’s identity in the world, but in learning that the world is scarcely ever simple; that it’s full of complexities and contradictions. Laila’s father loved her. But he was a tyrant. Her new friend Emmy doesn’t wear layers like Laila was required to in her country. But she’s not a whore because of that, as Laila thought early on. She wasn’t allowed to be affectionate with boys, or even know them as closely as she does Ian, who she meets at school. Laila can be an entirely new girl here in America - a girl who can embrace these complexities and contradictions; a girl who can finally be herself...continued
Full Review
(836 words)
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access,
become a member today.
(Reviewed by Rory L. Aronsky).
Dana Reinhardt, award-winning author of The Things a Brother Knows
It's a story both foreign and familiar, global and intimate. A tense chess game where you'll think you know the final moves only to learn you've been outsmarted. Suzanne Fisher Staples, Newbery Honor-winning author of Shabanu
This story is important on so many levels. It invites readers to contemplate paradox and contradictions in ways that few books do: how a friend's loyalty trumps her annoying habits; how you can love your country and still be honest about its shortcomings; how betrayal might be justifiable. But mostly it's a touching, suspenseful story about two children who don't belong anywhere. Every American should read this book. It's an eye-opener.Unlike Laila, who is a member of the ruling family of her Middle Eastern country, most child refugees don't have the luxury of fleeing to a more hospitable country when their own plunges into war. While The Tyrant's Daughter is set in an unknown Middle-Eastern country probably closer to Iraq than Syria, the plight of the refugees in Syria is much in the news.
By mid-2014, OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) estimated that half of Syria's 22 million population was affected by the conflict and in need of humanitarian assistance, including over 7 million internally displaced. In 2014, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that 3,000 to 6,000 people leave Syria each ...
This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.
If you liked The Tyrant's Daughter, try these:
by Muhsin Al-Ramli
Published 2019
One Hundred Years of Solitude meets The Kite Runner in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
by Imbolo Mbue
Published 2017
Oprah Winfrey's Summer 2017 Book Club Pick
In the vein of Amy Tan and Khaled Hosseini comes a compulsively readable debut novel about marriage, immigration, class, race, and the trapdoors in the American Dream - the unforgettable story of a young Cameroonian couple making a new life in New York just as the Great Recession upends the economy.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Stone Home
by Crystal Hana Kim
A moving family drama and coming-of-age story revealing a dark corner of South Korean history.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
