The book, written in the form of e-mails, recounts the personal lives of four young Saudi girls, Lamees, Michelle (half-Saudi, half-American), Gamrah, and Sadeem.

The Internet is also a new medium that can't contain women and their thoughts like the old system could, and the anonymous narrator of the novel takes advantage of that: she presents her stories in the form of e-mails that she sends out weekly to any Saudi address she can find.

Being a half-American and half-Saudi girl, Michelle is frustrated by limitations her western heritage imposes on her choices in love in Riyadh as her boyfriend's Saudi family gets in the way of their relationship.

Focusing on her studies in medical school, Lamees arrives late to love and only to discover the rules relationships are far more complex than she first may have thought when she falls for a Shiite Muslim boy.

A well read, red lipstick wearing Saudi girl, the narrator sends a new email once a week after Friday for a year disclosing the secret lives of her friends.

[1] In an interview with WBEZ Chicago, Alsanea said the anonymous narrator of the book reflects how advances in technology allowed Saudi girls to have more space and freedom to live both without being judged and whilst maintaining their privacy.

[5] Originally released in Lebanon in Arabic in 2005, Girls of Riyadh was not officially banned in Saudi Arabia but its publishing was met with resistance due to perceived controversial and non-conservative content by a female author.

[2] Some critics accused the novel of pandering to western ideals while others applauded Girls of Riyadh for its refreshing stance on the Middle East that pushes back against inaccurate stereotypes while also condemning the existence of others in Saudi culture e.g. forced marriages.

[5] The book has attracted high-profile endorsement such as celebrated Saudi author and former ambassador to the UK Ghazi Al-Quasaibi, who wrote the prologue and praised it as 'worth reading'.