Riyadh Girls - بنات الرياض

Few days ago, at midnight, I was very bored, no one at home and there was nothing to do or watch on TV. I suddenly remembered that I saw an ad for a book fair in Damascus citadel that stays open till 1 o’clock. So I went out of curiosity and boredom. The book fair was... fair, and the selection wasn’t huge neither interesting. But I saw that book: Riyadh Girls – بنات الرياض, and for one reason it rang a bell in my head, so I got it with another book هذيان هرّ مصاب بالاكتئاب (delirious thoughts of a depressed cat), which I didn’t like so much.

So ‘Riyadh girls’ is a book about a girl that decided to open Pandora’s Box about relationships and love life of girls in Saudi Arabia’s capital. This girl spread her stories over the web through a yahoo group called سيرة وانفضحت. Each Friday, thousands of Saudis and others wait for the new installment impatiently, and many comment back with all sorts of things.
The heroines are four girls, all best friends, and looking for a stable and fulfilling relationship, but it isn’t without hardships... especially in Saudi Arabia. The stories vary from that of arranged marriages, deception, cheating, and using كتب الكتاب for sex before marriage (then divorcing before the wedding), to perfect love that leads to nowhere, boys who can’t resist their parents ideas about the appropriate girl, girls who whine for their misfortune and others who overcome it. It also digs into mobile relationship, internet relationships, the oppression by the “do right, do no harm” police (الأمر بالمعروف والنهي عن المنكر), divorced women situation... in addition to other stories.
The flow of the story is brilliant and interesting; it binds the reader from beginning to end. In fact I read it in one session.
The book, I believe, tries to highlight the difficulties in attaining a healthy and proper relationship in Saudi Arabia due to the restrictions by law, religion and its enforcement, government, extra-conservative parents, and the society. It shows how most men are animals who would do anything to get into a girl’s pants then marry some girl who is virgin and picked by parents (but again, aren’t most Arab men like that??). It also shows how women are oppressed and confined to the walls of everything mentioned above, while the only freedom they can get is gotten under the table.

The book is a good read, I recommend it to everyone. But there is only one thing difficult about the book, at least for me, and it is the Saudi dialect (all conversations are in spoken dialect). The letter ق stands for ‘g’ as in get.
Final note, I don’t know whether these were true stories, or whether the group email was for real, I got the feeling that they are. But regardless, the stories definitely had a basis. I also don’t know whether the book is banned in Saudi Arabia, and I would be grateful if someone knows.