In Moroccan society, youth, virginity and submission are highly prized commodities. The price Ouazzani pays for rejecting these values is to be cast out of her father’s house for sixteen years. This is the story of Ouazzani’s stormy relationship with her father, her mother’s marriage and suicide, her grandparents’ unhappy union, and the joyful preparations for a traditional Moroccan wedding. In the end Ouazzani is only able to confront her father in peace, by reconciling herself with her past. But her painful journey of self-discovery reveals the dreadful toll that conforming to the demands of an unbending patriarchal order takes on many Moroccan women, and exposes the widespread hypocrisy in a society determined to save face at all costs.