A country of one king and millions of queens -- Cockroaches and prison bars -- Dirty girls -- Mecca under siege -- Behind the veil -- My Barbie is murdered -- The forbidden satellite dish -- Employed and homeless -- Love and the falafel man -- Live free or die -- Driving while female -- In the kingdom of Saudi men -- Aboya and the king -- The rain starts with a single drop.

This is a memoir about living, loving, dreaming, daring, and driving while female -- in a country where it's dangerous to do all of the above. Manal al-Sharif grew up in Mecca the second daughter of a taxi driver, born the year strict fundamentalism took hold. In her adolescence, she was religious radical, melting her brother's boy band CDs in the oven because music was haram: forbidden by Islamic law. But what a difference an education can make. By her twenties, she was a computer security engineer, one of a few women working in a desert compound built to resemble suburban America. That's when the Saudi kingdom's contradictions became too much to bear: she was labeled a slut for chatting with male colleagues, her school-age brother chaperoned her on a business trip, and while she kept a car in her garage, she was forbidden from driving on Saudi streets. Manal-al-Sharif has written a memoir about the making of an accidental activist, a story of a young Muslim woman who stood up to a kingdom of men -- and won.