Painting Kuwait Violet by Pamela Q. Fernandes – Review by Liz Vrchota

Painting Kuwait Violet by Pamela Q. Fernandes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Painting Kuwait Violet is set against the backdrop of the oil rich 1996 Kuwait. This is also a distressful time for women, well ok all time really has been for women there to be real. I struggled with this most of the novel. Then again I am one of those that has that internal struggle with time. One that stops and thinks, ‘oh it wasn’t really only 1998 ten years ago, more like it was twenty. Time flies, and while it seems like some things drastically change, other things brutally can stay the same. This is a theme that is well touched on throughout the entirety of this novel. I think it was a chance for many opportunities to address a lot of things that not your average woman would be aware of or educated on and should be more aware of. It didn’t necessarily fall completely short. However, I felt it could have expounded in a few places. Pamela Q. Fernandes was a completely new author to me when I picked up this novel, so I had no idea what I was going to get, and I was pleasantly surprised.

With all that said this book gets up close and personal with the journey of Violet Baretto. She is forced to take on a position to pay off her family’s debt. One that is way below her on multiple levels. There is many layers to this story though, not just the class and social differences that Violet faces, but the mystery and intrigue that are involved when Saba Dashti, Violet’s mistress, is introduced to the storyline. I was kept on the edge of my seat through the majority of the story and all of my questions were wrapped up by the end of the novel. Overall, it was a neat and well packaged four star read for me. I would be interested to see what else available from Pamela Q. Fernandes is in the very near future!

Review by@lizaileen
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