Inside the kingdom

Carmen was educated, westernized, self-confident, not particulary religious; she married into a very rich and powerful family; and in their private life her husband treated her pretty much as an equal. Thus when she reports on her experiences as a woman in Saudi Arabia, you know that she is reporting on the best possible experience any Saudi Arabian woman could ever possibly have. That is what makes her story so shocking. This is as good as it ever gets, and other than an escape to the West, there doesn't seem to be any hope for it ever getting any better.

Carmen married a Bin Laden - brother to Osama. I am not sure how much "inside" the kingdom this is. However, it is inside the marriage of a non-Saudi to a prominent Saudi and living some years in The Kingdom. Carmen covers being veiled, the harem-like existence of breeder wives for the distracted oligarchy, and day to day existence in a sort of gilded cage where you can't really run your house (can't interact with male workers, etc) or even socialize and explore.

Quite a superficial book, this is about the author's unhappiness with her repressive life in Saudi Arabia. She also showed a lack of sensitivity in constantly questioning the Saudi women's submissiveness to the regime. It's a wasted opportunity as she could have gone more in-depth given the unique perspective she offers as a daughter-in-law of the Bin Ladin family from the West.

So, I'm trying to catologue my books (because what if the house burned down? How would I know what to tell the insurance company???), and I was going through one of the bookcases and found this book. It actually belongs to my mother, and I was supposed to read it and mail it back to her YEARS ago. Which I am now going to do. But I thought I'd better read it fast.

Carmen Bin Ladin is not a talented writer, but she is competent, and her story is sort of fascinating to a western sensibility. (In a completely horrid way, of course). Bottom line is that wearing the veil - and all that goes with it - turns women into ciphers. Scared ones. Since I always pretty much suspected this, it was interesting to see it confirmed. Part of me kept show more thinking, Hello? You married devout Saudi royalty, and didn't expect this kind of misery? and part of me kept responding, Oh, leave her alone. She was young, she was in love. And I give her full credit for fighting successfully for custody of her daughters. Well done, Carmen! They're beautiful and they sound terrific show less

Makes me shudder to think that a woman could be so much at the mercy of a man & to be considered his property. The portrayal of women in the Saudi community is sobering. It was suggested that to understand Bin Laden one had to look at the the whole culture there. This book does a good job of putting one into that life. Carmen was very lucky to be rich enough to escape with her children.
I agree with Marlene who was impressed by Carmens' quote " They will use our tolerance to infiltrate our society with their intolerance." Frightening.

Fascinating look into the culture of Saudi Arabia and the Bin Laden family. Reminds me how grateful I am to have been born a female in the west.

This was a very interesting look into life in Saudi Arabia. Having lived in a Muslim country, much of the information was not as new to me as I would have thought it would be. Still, some aspects of the Saudi lifestyle were different from the lifestyle in Qatar, where we lived.
I think that some of the elements of life in Saudi would be shocking to an outsider--wearing an abaya, needing an exit visa, women having to be separate from men, luxurious clothing, separate marriage ceremonies--but I was already familiar with all of that, and quite honestly, in Qatar none of that is any big deal.
Saudi is stricter than Qatar, however, and I found it very interesting to hear the stories about the stricter religious order and also to gain insight show more into what life would be like when you are married into the culture.
Being half Persian, I would be surprised if Saudi was really as much of a shock to Carmen as she seems to lead us to believe.
The countries are very different, but she would be familiar with some aspects of Islam just from her visits to Iran in her childhood.
I found that Carmen sometimes repeated herself, but it did not bother me too much--it just served to reinforce her point.
The book seemed to tease that it was going to provide more information about Osama than it actually did. I think that I came to that conclusion because Osama was mentioned so quickly in the book and his life was summarized right from the start. The book is truly about Carmen, her husband, and her daughters though....a wonderful story in itself but I felt the Osama name was used simply to draw in more readers. show less