Raised in a conservative and emotionally volatile Palestinian family in Brooklyn, Yara thought she finally would feel free when she married a charming entrepreneur who took her to the suburbs. With her family balanced with her professional ambitions, Yara knows that her life is infinitely more rewarding than her own mother’s. So why doesn’t it feel like enough? After her dream of chaperoning a student trip to Europe evaporates and she responds to a colleague’s racist provocation, Yara is put on probation at work and must attend mandatory counseling to keep her position. To save herself, Yara must reckon with the reality that the difficulties of the childhood she thought she left behind have very real --- and damaging --- implications not just on her own future but that of her daughters.

Palestine, 1990. Seventeen-year-old Isra finds herself quickly betrothed and married. She struggles to adapt to the expectations of her oppressive mother-in-law Fareeda and strange new husband Adam, a pressure that intensifies as she begins to have children --- four daughters instead of the sons Fareeda tells Isra she must bear. Brooklyn, 2008. Eighteen-year-old Deya, Isra’s oldest daughter, must meet with potential husbands at her grandmother Fareeda’s insistence. She can’t help but wonder if her options would have been different had her parents survived the car crash that killed them when she was only eight. Soon, however, Deya will find herself on an unexpected path that leads her to shocking truths about her family.