This is definitely a riveting account of cultural traditions and perceptions in a land very different from our own. Essentially, it is a fictional novel written as a set of letters from one woman to another, outlining the experiences, feelings, and troubles that each are facing. I personally found it to be very intriguing and enlightening as a glimpse of a culture that can only just begin to be understood if one is open to being told about it in such ways. The style is very different from anything I have ever read before, and it does very much leave you initially feeling like the outsider that we all are, struggling to get a handle on what we are assumed to already know, but by the end it begins to feel as though the world being depicted is rather familiar after all, which is a definite sign of great narrative crafting in and of itself.
