Good Girl, Bad Girl" is an exciting drama about a society that remains silent, in which laughter is rare and pranks do not create any good results – and their result, more often than not are annoying, and harmful. The prose is exact and entertaining and exposes the trampling of women, bound within traditional roles of Yemen – as they try, not always successfully, to move forward – into hope. The women characters are front and center on the stage – are all intriguing– and dealing, along with their daughters, with the attitudes of their men. The stage lights focus on the Hadad family – with all its glory – ups and downs, stories of love and hate, friends and enemies. “Tnomasi! Tnomasi!” Jacob yells at one of her daughters and they drop their heads, silent, even if they are hurt until bleeding. Only Yaffa can’t manage to be the “Good Girl” he rather demands and she is punished with his belt – her legs in welts from the beating. The “Bad Girl” threatens to disgrace her family but the shame is only hers – through the eyes of her family." Naomi Achimor writes with an artistic and courageous pen. "Good Girl, Bad Girl is touching and emotional, managing to encompass evil and compassion in a way that is rare and human, as well as being a literary coup. The descriptions capture the period and draw the reader into the landscape of the Hadad family as well as the dramas of the other families on the Moshav – all of them heroines, whose magic is contagious. This is Achimor’s first book.
