Driving by Starlight by Anat Deracine

DRIVING BY STARLIGHT by Anat Deracine is set in modern day Saudi Arabia and revolves around life for young women there. The author herself grew up in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia although her university studies were in England and the US where she now lives. Deracine is very effective in conveying the oppressiveness of the patriarchal society while also introducing characters who hold a variety of views regarding religious rules and their enforcement. She raised many questions for me and my biggest reaction to DRIVING BY STARLIGHT was wishing that I could talk about this title to someone (like the characters Leena or her friend Mishail) who had actually lived the experience.

DRIVING BY STARLIGHT, with its beautiful cover, is an emotional, suspenseful story that received starred reviews from both Kirkus and Publishers Weekly.  Its lexile is a relatively low 860 and I think this would make for a very interesting choice for literature circles, particularly if it could be paired with a non-fiction work like Daring to Drive. Deracine (a pseudonym) refers to the efforts to secure the right to drive for women in Saudi Arabia and raises many other questions about women’s rights and the complexity of resistance. Some of these have been reflected in a recent Vanity Fair article as well as in this New York Times editorial.

If there is interest in exploring other cultures and diverse books, another option would perhaps be to pair DRIVING BY STARLIGHT with the graphic novel titled Dare to Disappoint by Özge Samancı about growing up in Turkey.