I will live - Lala Gul

My phone says 4:30 PM. I put on my makeup, my Heineken polo shirt and jeans, and head outside. I make sure to button up my jacket, though, so my work clothes aren't visible in case I run into someone or my parents see me leave." Growing up in a strict Sunni family means mostly doing things in secret for Lale Gül. Secretly wearing makeup and jewelry, coming home late, meeting boys, and serving alcohol in a restaurant. But it means even more: constantly asking questions. "Should I live like a houseplant? Should I just go to school and work and pretend I'm a human who doesn't experience feelings and desires, while all around me I see Muslim boys who do have the freedom to indulge them? Then enter into a marriage where all the sex has been hammered out before it even began, because my parents chose a completely humorless, pathetic, and pious jerk for me? And then turn into a brood hen? Is that what I live for? Will God be happy with my tragedy?" In an unprecedentedly honest account, Gül humorously explores the boundaries of her faith and the community she grew up in. If anyone doesn't mince words, it's Lale Gül.