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The text is about examining the compexities and paradoxes urban, Eyptian women face when deemed infertile, particularly in light of the Egyptian patriarchy during the 1980s-1990s. The author seeks to dismantle binaries of infertile versus fertile and mother versus non-mother, engaging in a feminist analysis of identity, community, family, and the political forces involved with the introduction of Western biomedicine and psychology.

The text is designed such that the stories of the Egyptian women the author interviewed are central and portrayed as being outside the scope of essentialist conceptions. The author begins most chapters with photos of the women and their stories, then proceeds to make broader points that are grounded in the stories. Psychosocial and feminist theory is outlined in the beginning of the text, serving as the base for the stories to rest on.

The cover on the book is of three women smiling at the photographer, with a relatively barren wall behind them, save for what appears to be a corkboard, outlet, and long wire. The photo is in a sepia tone, rendering it with the appearance of an old photograph. The women are wearing head covers. Based on the description of the text, I would guess that one of the author's interviewees is present in the photo, and that this is a display of several generations of women from an Egyptian family.

The brief metion of the manners in which religion both aids and hurts infertile women drew my attention, and left me wanting more, particularly the manner in which patriarchy informs the place of women within their religious institution. In addition, I was drawn to the sketch's discussion of the new knowledge the text brings into circulation. I appreciated that there is an escape from essentialist conceptions of what it means to be a Middle Eastern woman and the manner in which infertile women resist social pressures.

The sketch strives to relay the ethnography beyond the monograph by proposing potential forms of circulation, drawing together certain important themes and how they might be generalizable for different interested parties, and effective manners for conveying the information via alternative modalities. By drawing together various theorists and themes mentioned in the text to audiences such as anthropologists, academics, Middle Eastern studies, and feminists, the sketch provides an opportunity for readers to determine manners in which they might apply this text to their own work.

I would propose including a more detailed outline of the themes that each chapter of the ethnography covers, that way a prospective audience can gain a sense of which chapters might be relevant to them and their work. While it is good to know that each chapter has a distinctive story that is connected to broader histories/practices, I would like to gain a better sense of what that actually looks like in the text.