It is highly suspenseful and I especially liked the evil telephone motif. This was back in the days before calling features when the phone still had enough mystique to sometimes in still fear.
Several reviewers have impugned the credibility of this story. The basic premise, unfortunately, is highly plausible and not just confined to Muslim countries. Someone also expressed contemptuous disbelief that Souad's mother would actually suffocate her baby daughters. This story takes place about three decades ago. Today gender (almost always female) infanticide has been made obsolete by ultra-sound. In countries like India (majority Hindu) and China (majority atheist) female fetuses are aborted at such a high rate many young men have difficulty finding wives. Many baby girls who manage to make it out of the womb alive end up in orphanages. This perturbing aspect of females helping to perpetuate their own subservient status is an irony usually overlooked by readers.
Burned Alive is a timeless story. This version just happens to take place in Palestine. Souad lives a very isolated and abusive life. Instead of her parents building self-esteem in their daughter, and warning her about the archetypal Humpty-Dumpty, they treat her as some sort scourge turned servant as compensation for not having been born male. She is kept locked up behind walls so that she won't escape and no one will use her. When she eventually manages to sneak out she is putty in the hands of a wily older man looking to score. He showers her with "kindness" and flattery, tells her he loves her and wants to marry her, etc. He gets her pregnant and then leaves the country for an extended vacation. It also turns out that he's already married or has a fiancée.
This creates an embarrassing quagmire for Souad's family: It makes the men look like a bunch of weenies who can't control their women. It also spoils their cash crop since in many cultures the groom must pay a bride price to the male head of household. Ergo, pregnant Souad must be annihilated in order to punish her and save face.
In the US murder is the leading cause of death among pregnant women, usually perpetrated by the husband or boyfriend who wants to be relieved of his paternal responsibility. Fortunately, defending one's so called "honor" is not a defense for murder. So, Charles Stuart, who fatally shot his pregnant wife and superficially shot himself blamed it on a non-existent black man. Rae Caruth denied shooting his pregnant girlfriend and if this had been prior to the advent of DNA testing he could have simply denied paternity. Scott Peterson blamed it on a band of marauding Devil worshippers. His trial was a death penalty (which is rarely carried out) case and he was convicted of two murders.
I am very grateful that in America women enjoy a status, economic power, and legal protect that exceeds that of many nations. Unfortunately, these advances haven't eradicated misogyny, which fuels violence against women.
FYI: For those interested in this subject I also recommend The Garlic Ballads by Mo Yan. It takes place in the Chinese countryside in 1987. A young woman, Jinju, is forced into an unwanted marriage with a much older man in order to secure a happy marriage for her older brother. Corrupt officials refuse to help her and she runs off with her true love. It is also a brutal story and its premise is basically the same.
