Book Beginnings/The Friday 56 July 7. 2017

Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice and Book Beginnings is hosted by Rose City Reader. The idea is to share a sentence or so from the first page and the 56th page of the book you are currently reading!  Also, I will now also include a brief synopsis.
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A ferociously intimate memoir by a devout woman from a modest family in Saudi Arabia who became the unexpected leader of a courageous movement to support women’s right to drive.

Manal al-Sharif grew up in Mecca the second daughter of a taxi driver, born the year fundamentalism took hold. In her adolescence, she was a religious radical, melting her brother’s boy band cassettes in the oven because music was haram: forbidden by Islamic law. But what a difference an education can make. By her twenties she was a computer security engineer, one of few women working in a desert compound that resembled suburban America. That’s when the Saudi kingdom’s contradictions became too much to bear: she was labeled a slut for chatting with male colleagues, her teenage brother chaperoned her on a business trip, and while she kept a car in her garage, she was forbidden from driving down city streets behind the wheel.

Daring to Drive is the fiercely intimate memoir of an accidental activist, a powerfully vivid story of a young Muslim woman who stood up to a kingdom of men—and won. Writing on the cusp of history, Manal offers a rare glimpse into the lives of women in Saudi Arabia today. Her memoir is a remarkable celebration of resilience in the face of tyranny, the extraordinary power of education and female solidarity, and the difficulties, absurdities, and joys of making your voice heard. 

Beginning of the Books:  The secret police came for me at two in the morning. The second knock on the door quickly followed the first..  They were loud hard knocks, the kind that radiate out and shake the door frame.  My five year old son  was asleep but I was awake still, sitting up with my brother

My thoughts:  The secret police is never a good thing, especially in Muslim nations.

Page 56: I bled for three days; my sister told me afterward that my face turned yellow. They couldn't take me to the doctor; although there is no official rule banning female circumcision, female circumcision can still be treated as a crime in many Saudi hospitals.  

My thoughts: And a crime it should be.  This book certainly will not help people to see Islam in a better light.  It will just give us another view of why it is barbaric.  Thank goodness, it is not the Friday 55; I definitely would not have been able to include any of the description of the actual act here.  It was difficult enough to read.  Ick, I really did not need to have the process described to me.  

I hope this does not get any more graphic or I may not be able to continue.  What do you think would you continue to read this?