Krista Bremer. (2014). A Tender Struggle: Story of a Marriage. Algonquin Books.

Krista Bremer. 2014. A Tender Struggle: Story of a Marriage. Algonquin Books.

Krista Bremer, A Tender Struggle: Story of a Marriage. Algonquin Books, 2014.

Krista Bremer. A Tender Struggle: Story of a Marriage. Algonquin Books, 2014.

OverDrive Product Record

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0017-1/{B2A26AAE-F4C1-4EA8-8D3C-118813F17BF7}IMG100.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0017-1/{B2A26AAE-F4C1-4EA8-8D3C-118813F17BF7}IMG200.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0017-1/{B2A26AAE-F4C1-4EA8-8D3C-118813F17BF7}IMG150.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0017-1/{B2A26AAE-F4C1-4EA8-8D3C-118813F17BF7}IMG400.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg

formats

1. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781616203979
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
2. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B00FZWN4AQ
   • name: Kindle Book
   • id: ebook-kindle
3. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781616203979
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • id: ebook-overdrive

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 9781616204495

mediaType

eBook

primaryCreator

• role: Author
• name: Krista Bremer

isOwnedByCollections

True

title

A Tender Struggle

dateAdded

2014-08-11T15:13:00Z

contentDetails

1. • href: https://link.overdrive.com?websiteID=141&titleID=1499128
   • type: text/html
   • account:
     • name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
     • id: 1151

sortTitle

Tender Struggle Story of a Marriage

crossRefId

1499128

subtitle

Story of a Marriage

id

B2A26AAE-F4C1-4EA8-8D3C-118813F17BF7

starRating

3.9

OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain

False

formats

1. • fileName: ATenderStruggle_9781616203979_1499128
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 906672
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781616203979
   • rights:
     1. • type: Copying
        • value: 0
     2. • type: Printing
        • value: 0
     3. • type: Lending
        • value: 0
     4. • type: ReadAloud
        • value: 0
     5. • type: ExpirationRights
        • value: 0
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
   • onSaleDate: 4/22/2014
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/my-accidental-jihad?.epub-sample.overdrive.com
2. • fileName: ATenderStruggle_1499128
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B00FZWN4AQ
   • name: Kindle Book
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-kindle
   • onSaleDate: 4/22/2014
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/my-accidental-jihad?.epub-sample.overdrive.com
3. • fileName: ATenderStruggle_9781616203979_1499128
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781616203979
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-overdrive
   • onSaleDate: 4/22/2014
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/my-accidental-jihad?.epub-sample.overdrive.com

keywords

1. • value: politics
2. • value: journalist
3. • value: Biography
4. • value: Faith
5. • value: understanding
6. • value: small town
7. • value: South
8. • value: North Carolina
9. • value: Diversity
10. • value: Pacific
11. • value: Surfing
12. • value: interracial romance
13. • value: marriage
14. • value: Forgiveness
15. • value: Religion
16. • value: Autobiography
17. • value: feminist
18. • value: parenthood
19. • value: pregnancy
20. • value: west coast
21. • value: trust
22. • value: commitment
23. • value: Libya
24. • value: true story
25. • value: patience
26. • value: Islam
27. • value: kindness
28. • value: feminism
29. • value: communication
30. • value: spiritual journey
31. • value: Poverty
32. • value: multicultural
33. • value: compromise
34. • value: memoir
35. • value: Spiritual Growth
36. • value: muslim
37. • value: Pacific Northwest
38. • value: cultural differences
39. • value: surfer
40. • value: accidental pregnancy
41. • value: fishing village
42. • value: female athlete
43. • value: muslim husband

creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Bremer, Krista
   • bioText: Xe Sands is an award-winning narrator known for her authentic characterizations and intimate delivery. She has more than a decade of experience bringing stories to life through narration, performance, and visual art, and she has been recognized for her engaging romance narrations.
   • name: Krista Bremer

imprint

Algonquin Books

publishDate

2014-04-22T00:00:00-04:00

isOwnedByCollections

True

title

A Tender Struggle

fullDescription

“A story about love, marriage, compromise, parenthood and the difference between the life one imagined and reality.”*
Fifteen years ago, Krista Bremer, a California-bred feminist, surfer, and aspiring journalist, met Ismail Suayah, sincere, passionate, kind, yet from a very different world. One of eight siblings born in an impoverished fishing village in Libya, Ismail was raised a Muslim—and his faith informed his life. When Krista and Ismail made the decision to become a family, she embarked on a journey she never could have imagined, an accidental jihad: a quest for spiritual and intellectual growth that would open her mind and, more important, her heart.
“A bold piece of writing (and thinking) by an incredibly brave woman.”  —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of The Signature of All Things
“A moving, lyrical memoir.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Candid and rich.” —Good Housekeeping
“Unrelenting candor and  gorgeous prose.” —BookPage
“Krista Bremer has a very good story.” —The New York Times Book Review
“A beautiful account of [Krista’s] jihad, or struggle, to find peace within herself and within her marriage.” —The Kansas City Star
“Lucid, heartfelt, and profoundly humane . . . Navigates the boundaries of religion and politics to arrive at the universal experience of love.” —G. Willow Wilson, author of Alif the Unseen
“This is a memoir worth reading.” —*Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

reviews

1. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     December 23, 2013
     Bremer, associate publisher of the Sun, explores the points of connection—and potential conflict—in her marriage to Libyan-born Ismail. Bremer, a surfing aficionado, feminist, avid traveler, and aspiring journalist, was not looking for a commitment when she began dating the older Ismail and shortly thereafter became unexpectedly pregnant. Her eventual surrender to a different kind of imagined future forms one of the memoir's central themes, as does the couple's evolving conversations on such issues as circumcising their son and encouraging their daughter's desire to wear the Muslim headscarf to school. One extended section recounts the couple's first visit to Libya, a trip during which Bremer addresses the political realities of Ismail's home country and finds herself alienated from and unexpectedly drawn to Ismail's family, so unlike her own white suburban American one. The memoir does not, however, offer similar insights into Ismail's (assumed) interactions with Bremer's extended family—such a focus could have offered rich potential for critical examination of and revelations about Bremer's own upbringing rather than merely the exotic otherness represented by Ismail's clan. Nevertheless, Bremer's particular story strikingly highlights the (usually more mundane) cultural clashes and compromises inherent to every marriage or long-term relationship.

2. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     March 1, 2014
     A moving, lyrical memoir about how an American essayist fell in love with a Libyan-born Muslim man and learned to embrace the life she made with him. Sun associate publisher Bremer was a wayward former California surfer girl just starting to build her life in North Carolina when she met Ismail. He was 15 years older than she and different from her in almost every possible way. Yet his gentle simplicity made her feel as though she could "finally exhale...and [open] up to [herself]" in ways she had not been able to with anyone else. When she unexpectedly became pregnant not long after they met, she faced a difficult choice: terminate the pregnancy and continue her pursuit of a promising career in journalism or keep the baby and accept Ismail's heartfelt offer of marriage. Unable to resist the mysterious allure of the future she "never intended--or even knew how much [she] wanted," Bremer chose to "stitch [their] mismatched lives together to make a family." Among the many challenges she encountered was coming to terms with Ismail's loving but traditionalist family in Tripoli. To them, she was a woman "weighed down by so much individualism, impatience, and desire." Yet through her visits with them, she also learned to temper the Western individualism she came to realize had been the source of the "creeping despair that comes from doggedly chasing the elusive dream that women can be everything at once." As she gradually came to accept a different way of living--and eventually, worshipping--in middle-class America, Bremer grew to appreciate Ismail, her extended family and the struggle they brought into her life more than she even imagined possible. A sweet and rewarding journey of a book.

     COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     February 1, 2014
     

     Bremer (associate publisher, The Sun) focuses her memoir on the contrast between the cultures of a man and a woman who meet on a running trail, fall in love, and decide to marry and raise a family together. A selfish, materialistic American woman who formerly worked as a pregnancy counselor finds herself on the other side of a pink test strip and marries the older, overbearing, irrational Libyan-born Muslim who is the father of her child. Ismail grew up in Africa with an illiterate father who was a shopkeeper but earned very little money. As a middle-class teenager in the United States, Bremer worked in an ice cream store to be able to afford more designer clothing. The couple's experience of Christmas and Ramadan show the stark difference between their customs. While Bremer is frantically shopping, wrapping, and decorating, Ismail can only ask her: "Why?" Meanwhile, Ismail, who is regimented by the monthlong Ramadan fast, has no patience for his wife's overindulgence, causing Bremer to wonder with annoyance if, when, and how her husband will find his Christmas spirit. VERDICT Bremer won a Pushcart Prize for her essay on which this book is based; her writing appears in numerous magazines (O: The Oprah Magazine; More). Readers of memoir will welcome this love story about patience and kindness and learning the importance of putting culture first.--Joyce Sparrow, Kenneth City, FL

     Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

popularity

162

links

• self:
  • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/b2a26aae-f4c1-4ea8-8d3c-118813f17bf7/metadata
  • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json

id

b2a26aae-f4c1-4ea8-8d3c-118813f17bf7

starRating

3.9

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0017-1/{B2A26AAE-F4C1-4EA8-8D3C-118813F17BF7}IMG100.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0017-1/{B2A26AAE-F4C1-4EA8-8D3C-118813F17BF7}IMG200.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0017-1/{B2A26AAE-F4C1-4EA8-8D3C-118813F17BF7}IMG150.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0017-1/{B2A26AAE-F4C1-4EA8-8D3C-118813F17BF7}IMG400.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg

isPublicPerformanceAllowed

False

languages

1. • code: en
   • name: English

subjects

1. • value: Biography & Autobiography
2. • value: Family & Relationships
3. • value: Religion & Spirituality
4. • value: Nonfiction

publishDateText

04/22/2014

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 9781616204495

mediaType

eBook

shortDescription

“A story about love, marriage, compromise, parenthood and the difference between the life one imagined and reality.”*
Fifteen years ago, Krista Bremer, a California-bred feminist, surfer, and aspiring journalist, met Ismail Suayah, sincere, passionate, kind, yet from a very different world. One of eight siblings born in an impoverished fishing village in Libya, Ismail was raised a Muslim—and his faith informed his life. When Krista and Ismail made the decision to become a family, she embarked on a journey she never could have imagined, an accidental jihad: a quest for spiritual and intellectual growth that would open her mind and, more important, her heart.
“A bold piece of writing (and thinking) by an incredibly brave woman.”  —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of The Signature of All Things
“A moving, lyrical memoir.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Candid and rich.” —Good...

sortTitle

Tender Struggle Story of a Marriage

crossRefId

1499128

subtitle

Story of a Marriage

publisher

Algonquin Books

bisacCodes

1. • code: BIO026000
   • description: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Memoirs
2. • code: FAM030000
   • description: Family & Relationships / Marriage & Long-Term Relationships
3. • code: REL037000
   • description: Religion / Islam / General