I am not exaggerating when I say that I know of no books on Islam or the Middle East that has been more reviewed in US press than Hirsi Ali's book. In fact, it has been reviewed more than once in several newspapers. Here, it says: "Hirsi Ali was called “filthy prostitute” by her own mother." Well, at least in the free West, there are no cases--none whatsoever--of verbal, emotional, or sexual abuse of children by their parents. Also, women are never called by names in the West, never. I have lived long enough in the West to know that. Then you read: " At the same time, Hirsi Ali was fascinated by glimpses of a freer life, mere fantasies really, imbibed from romantic novels by Danielle Steel and Barbara Cartland: “Buried in all of these books was a message: women had a choice.”" I believe that. Personally, I first learned about freedom and liberty by watching James Bond's movies. They really gave me the message that there is equality of gender in the free West. That is where I first discovered feminism. But at least even Buruma concludes: " This uplifting story of liberation is entirely plausible, but it gives Hirsi Ali’s descriptions of life in the West an idealized, almost comic-book quality that sounds as naïve as those romantic novels she consumed as a young girl."