As a Palestinian American woman, Yara experiences both gender and racial discrimination, particularly in the early chapters of the novel, and these experiences affect her mental health and emotional well-being. Because of her decisions to focus on getting an education and having a career in addition to being a wife and mother, Yara frequently comes up against the judgments of those in her community, particularly her mother-in-law, Nadia. At the same time, Yara struggles with the race- and gender-based assumptions of her professional colleagues, who often condescend to her Arab culture and assume that she is an “oppressed” woman. Because these two forms of discrimination impact the two most important places in Yara’s life—her home and her workplace—she is constantly on her guard; until she meets Silas and starts therapy with Esther, there is really nowhere that she can relax and be herself.

Yara has always been ambivalent about marriage. Not marrying did not seem like a real choice within her close-knit Palestinian American community, but she also witnessed the emotional toll her parents’ unhappy marriage exacted, particularly on her mother. Yara’s husband, Fadi, believes that he holds “modern” views, but during one argument, he points out that he “allows her” to work outside of the home, causing Yara to retort that she still has “no independence compared to [him] or any man [they] know” (79).