Isra is a young Palestinian woman who is married off to an Arab-American man and relocated to a basement apartment in Brooklyn. Stifled by a culture that demands female subservience, she spends her days cooking, cleaning, and bearing children while suffering profound isolation. Though she longs for romantic love and personal freedom, she struggles to find the courage to assert herself against her overbearing in-laws and husband. She finds brief moments of escape by reading copies of *A Thousand and One Nights*.

Deya is the eldest daughter of Isra and Adam, raised by her traditional grandparents after the early deaths of her parents. She attends an all-girl Islamic school and feels torn between her family's strict cultural expectations to marry and her own secret desire to attend college. Like her mother, she seeks refuge in books and struggles to find her own voice, though she possesses a growing determination to break the cycle of female submission.

Fareeda is the fiercely traditional matriarch of the family. Having survived extreme poverty and abuse in a Palestinian refugee camp, she relies on rigid adherence to Arabic cultural expectations as a coping mechanism. She ruthlessly enforces patriarchal rules upon the younger women in her household, driven by a desire to preserve family reputation and haunted by buried shame from her own early years of marriage.

Sarah is Adam's younger sister, an assimilated Arab-American woman who fiercely resists the cultural expectations placed upon her. Unwilling to accept an arranged marriage or give up her dream of education, she represents the possibility of liberation. She works at a Manhattan bookstore and actively tries to show the younger women in her family that they have choices beyond domestic subservience.

Adam is a Palestinian-American who works long, exhausting hours at his family's multiple businesses in New York. Though he initially dreamed of becoming an imam, he sacrificed his ambitions for his family's financial security. The immense pressure to provide, coupled with the cultural expectation to dominate his household and produce a male heir, fuels a dark, volatile temperament that he takes out on his wife.

Khaled is the patriarch of the family and Fareeda's husband. He built his family's financial stability in America after enduring severe poverty in a refugee camp. While he is demanding and expects strict obedience from his children, he occasionally shows unexpected flashes of progressiveness, such as quietly supporting his granddaughter's interest in reading, though he remains largely complicit in the household's oppressive dynamic.

Nora is the second daughter of Isra and Adam, and Deya's closest confidante. Having lost her parents at a young age, she relies heavily on her sisters for emotional support. She tends to remember their childhood with more fondness than Deya does and often cautions her older sister against taking risks that might anger their grandparents.

Nasser is an Arab-American student whose parents are pushing him toward a medical career, though he secretly prefers business. He presents himself as relatively progressive during his supervised meetings with Deya, asking about her interests, but eventually reveals that he still holds firm traditional expectations regarding a woman's primary role in the home.

Nadine is Omar's wife, specifically chosen by Fareeda for her lively, personable nature as a deliberate contrast to Isra. However, Nadine proves to be far more entitled and outspoken than Fareeda anticipated, eventually causing friction in the household by standing up for herself and fully engaging with her children.

Omar is Khaled and Fareeda's son. Following family tradition, his parents travel to Palestine to select a bride for him, returning with Nadine. He works in the family's expanding retail businesses, stepping into a steady income when his parents open a new convenience store.

Ali is the youngest son of Khaled and Fareeda. Unlike his brothers who are absorbed into the family businesses, Ali faces pressure from Khaled to pursue higher education, though Ali himself sees little point in college and lacks investment in his studies.

Yacob is Isra's father, a poor but proud man living in Birzeit, Palestine. He attempts to mask his family's poverty through small pretensions of wealth. He views his daughter primarily as a financial burden and enforces strict, violent discipline to ensure her obedience.

Layla is the third daughter of Isra and Adam. Her birth adds to Isra's depression and exhaustion, as the family continuously hopes for a male child. She grows up under Fareeda's strict supervision alongside her sisters.

Amal is the fourth daughter born to Isra and Adam. Like her sisters, she is raised without her parents, relying entirely on her older siblings and traditional grandparents for her upbringing.

Umm Ahmed is Fareeda's friend and peer in the community. She offers a slightly softer approach to tradition, suggesting that the older generation should help make life easier for their daughters-in-law rather than repeating the harsh treatment they endured.

Hannah is Umm Ahmed's daughter. Her desire to escape a bad marriage and seek a divorce makes her a cautionary tale within the tight-knit Palestinian-American community, illustrating the severe risks women face when attempting to assert their independence.

Naeema is a classmate of Deya at the all-girl Islamic school. She pragmatically accepts the cultural practice of arranged marriage, reasoning that marrying a stranger is simply the way things are done in their community.

Hala is a woman from Fareeda's past in the refugee camp. She openly gossips about a neighbor's tragedy, demonstrating how quickly the community assigns blame and spreads rumors among women.