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Too Soon

A Novel

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Too Soon

By: Betty Shamieh
Narrated by: Betty Shamieh, Jacqueline Antaramian, Lameece Issaq
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About this listen

“A Palestinian American Sex and the City.” —The Atlantic • “Wonderfully brash and sparkling...This book fills in gaps in our understanding.” —Oprah Daily • “Shamieh balances her characters’ painful family history and their boisterously funny voices.” —New Yorker

A funny, sexy, and heart-wrenching literary debut that explores exile, ambition, and hope across three generations of Palestinian American women.

Arabella gets an unexpected chance at love when she’s thrust into a conflict and history she’s tried to avoid all her life.

Zoya is playing matchmaker for her last unmarried granddaughter and stirring up buried memories.

Naya is keeping a secret from her children that will change all their lives.

Thirty-five-year-old Arabella, a New York theatre director whose dating and career prospects are drying up, is offered an opportunity to direct a risqué cross-dressing interpretation of a Shakespeare classic—that might garner international attention—in the West Bank. Her mother, Naya, and grandmother, Zoya, hatch a plot to match her with Aziz, a Palestinian American doctor volunteering in Gaza. Arabella agrees to meet Aziz, since her growing feelings for Yoav, a celebrated Israeli American theatre designer, seem destined for disaster...

With biting hilarity, Too Soon introduces us to a trio of bold and unforgettable voices. This dramatic saga follows one family’s epic journey fleeing war-torn Jaffa in 1948, chasing the American Dream in Detroit and San Francisco in the sixties and seventies, hustling in the New York theatre scene post-9/11, and daring to stage a show in Palestine in 2012. Upon learning one of them is living on borrowed time, the three women fight to live, make art, and love on their own terms. A funny, sexy, and heart-wrenching literary debut, Too Soon illuminates our shared history and asks, how can we set ourselves free?

©2025 Betty Shamieh (P)2025 Simon & Schuster Audio
Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Women's Fiction World Literature Funny Inspiring New York Israeli-Palestinian conflict
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This story was well written and a page turner. Loved the characters and the honesty that shines through. Struggled with the author’s voice however (sorry!)

A beautiful story

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