Bren (Breninithaca) reviewed Beautiful yet haunting...really makes you think on 9/26/2008 + 377 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

This is one of my top books of 2008. This book was so sad and haunting and yet written absolutely beautifully. The book really made me realize that people in other countries, even places we consider enemies of the US like Iran, are more like us than we know. They just want to be left alone to live their lives the way they want, in peace and quiet. We may not like or understand their way of life and they may not like ours, but that doesn't give us the right to judge or condemn them for it. I felt bad for Maryam for being oppressed as a young woman growing up in Iran, but she wasn't any happier when she escaped that life and moved to England. She and her daughter were always torn between the two countries and neither one of them could be whole until she learned to embrace both parts of her heritage. It was terrible the way Maryam's father treated her like chattel he could buy and sell, but I loved the way both of the men she loved, her English husband and her Iranian lover, both gave her freedom to decide for herself which life/which man she would choose in the end.

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