“You could say I did not exactly meet customer specifications. Trouble is, it’s not like at the supermarket: There’s no customer-satisfaction guarantee.”

Doria, explaining how she disappointed her father by not being a boy, compares herself to an unsatisfactory purchase at the supermarket. Using the language of consumer society shows how she employs humor to distance herself from the pain of this knowledge, while also subtly mocking her father’s selfish and unrealistic expectations.

“Seems he moved to the countryside. Remade himself into a cheesemaker, for all I know. He drives around the little villages of dear old la belle France in his sky blue van on Sunday mornings after Mass, selling rye bread, old-fashioned Roquefort cheese, and saucisson sec.”

Doria recalls an earlier social worker who seemed to view her and Yasmina as alien and exotic, and whose attempts to fit in came off as awkward. She imagines him leaving Paris and its suburbs for traditional rural life, including Catholic Mass and Sunday markets, reinventing himself as part of an unchanging French society. Tellingly, this vision includes selling pork sausages. The passage reflects Doria’s sense of herself and her community as outsiders in France.

“Over there, it’s enough that you have even the smallest little bumps for breasts, you know to shut up when you’re told to, you know how to bake decent bread, and bam, you’re all ready for marriage.”

Doria recalls how, on her and Yasmina’s last visit to Morocco, the local women were already suggesting possible husbands for her. Doria, however, is disturbed by the restrictive nature of traditional North African gender roles. Specifically, she dislikes being seen merely as a future wife and mother, and as someone whose value depends on her being submissive and serving others.