It’s safe to say not many American women would, after graduating from Princeton and beginning a promising career in urban planning, forsake it all and become the fourth wife of the twice-her-age King of Jordan after a three-week, whirlwind romance.

And that’s what makes “Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life,” the biography of Queen Noor Al-Hussein of Jordan, so fascinating. This is no Grace Kelly fairy tale fantasy, though it almost seems Noor is consciously trying to distance herself from the grandeur of Kelly and Princess Diana.

“Faith” details the transformation of Lisa Halaby – an independent and intelligent young woman growing up at ground zero of the feminist and civil rights movements – into Queen Noor, a faithful and devoted wife to Jordan’s King Hussein who came to embrace her adopted country wholeheartedly.

The change is sudden and dramatic, and in brief moments, almost cult-like. The beginning sections of the book, detailing Noor’s adolescent and high school years, seem detached and analytical, as if she is looking back on her life through the eyes of someone who has always had disdain for America and what it stands for. She almost seems to be rationalizing her unending love for Jordan, a country that would become an enemy of the United States during the Gulf War.

But that’s always the downside of biographies – 400 pages can’t begin to do justice to a lifetime of experiences and memories. While it may be difficult for readers to understand Noor’s initial decision to marry the king, as the memoir progresses, it’s impossible to deny the deep bond of trust and respect that developed during the more than 20 years they spent together before King Hussein died of cancer.

For Americans especially, the book provides an interesting look at the world from a non-American perspective. Jordanians are largely Arab, and the country has traditionally supported the Palestinians who are trying to reclaim the Holy Land they feel was stolen from them. The United States, on the other hand, has been a staunch advocate of the Israeli effort to establish a Jewish state.

According to Noor, the American media has a distinct pro-Israeli bias, and she and King Hussein spent much of their lives trying to debunk Arab stereotypes and press for a peaceful resolution to conflict in the Middle East. They traveled from country to country and gave speech after speech advocating peace, but in the end, it seemed their message reached few.

Noor and her family faced an uphill battle with the press from the start. Though Noor’s father actually had strong Arab roots, the blonde who towered two inches over her husband was a controversial pick for queen. From the outset, the media, especially British tabloids, watched her every move.

What they wanted was a stylish, graceful royal to fawn over, a la Princess Di, but that’s not what Noor gave them. So the press created what Noor calls outrageous stories about grandiose purchases and love affairs with American actors.

What the press didn’t notice, as they ridiculed her too-casual attire and derided her lack of a crown, was Noor’s carefully chosen public agenda, which included lobbying on behalf of women’s and children’s rights in Jordan and around the world. One of her most ambitious projects was to set up a successful community work program for destitute Jordanian women, teaching them to weave rugs that they sold to tourists.

Noor and Hussein managed to raise four of their own children, along with the three young stepchildren left motherless after the tragic death of Hussein’s young third wife. While it’s obvious Noor adores each of her children and stepchildren, they are mostly raised by a large housekeeping staff, and her accounts of motherhood seem almost tangential to her public life.

It may have been easier to understand Noor’s family life if the more mundane stories of births, pets and rebellious teenagers were kept in chapters separate from complicated details of international politics. Obviously, it takes a dedicated parent to juggle the two lives, but it’s a bit jarring to read an anecdote about a young son breaking his leg when he rides a toy car over a hill interspersed with the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Arab-Israeli tensions form the backdrop of much of the book. Noor speaks often about her pro-Palestinian beliefs; she advocates abiding by a U.N. resolution that would return holy lands to the Arabs that were forced to leave them. Noor also spends a lot of time talking about how her husband and her country were unfairly turned into the enemy during the Gulf War. Though Jordan remained neutral, King Hussein’s unwavering dedication to a peaceful resolution was turned by the media into a tacit approval of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

And the queen alleges Americans were too wrapped up in domestic scandal – this was the era of Lorena Bobbit, O.J. Simpson and Monica Lewinsky, after all – to bother to seek out the truth about King Hussein.

Although she and her husband owned a house in Washington D.C. and she often spoke at colleges across the United States, Noor seems to have severed her ties to her home country completely. It’s a bit sobering to see that even natives, once they look at America from the outside, seem to think the United States is too self-absorbed for its own good.

Noor describes her husband as saintly and heroic, and though there is no reason not to believe her side of the story, the book is, by definition, a biased account of a man from the woman who loved him and forgives all his faults. While the memoir may not be enough to change the world’s opinions of King Hussein, it definitely proves he was a man who was loved and respected by his family, his country and the majority of world leaders.

It’s also likely that we haven’t seen the last of Queen Noor. She’s still young, and though she lost her crown with the death of King Hussein, she still has the international clout to make a real difference in the lives of women and children around the world.