The book is a journey through harrowing experiences of cultural repression and personal abuse, but ultimately overcoming these to begin anew in a new country, United States. The author's account is at times honest and clear-eyed but doesn present a rosy picture of the celebrity culture in the U.S. The section relating the hopes of the author in writing this story to help other domestic abuse victims, strikes me as more poignant. The account is timely; it provides a good context for the reader on the current unrest and demonstrations in Iran, touched off by killing of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, at the hands of Iran's Morality Police. The book can benefit from an editor's touch on structuring the story but mainly to address the typo's in the copy.
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Naz Meknat shares her inspiring and amazing story here. She overcame a repressive regime, an abusive marriage and men who tried to trick her to escape to America and live the life of her dreams. It is a good read but quite harrowing at times.

As an Iranian teenager having to try and avoid the Morality Police, Naz longed for the freedom of Western countries. Her older sister enjoyed her life in America and Naz wanted to be like her. However, she married very young and her husband soon turned abusive. Naz found it difficult to escape.

It was a long road to freedom, and Naz had to grow up fast. Her account of being alone in a Turkish hotel room suffering from boredom and repression was hard to read, but I thought that it was the best-written part of the book.

She is very likeable and writes in an intimate style so that you feel that she is a very friendly person and not intimidating, in spite of her eventual success. I would have liked to read about her life in America. Maybe, she will write about that next time! ( )

The author recounts her life growing up in post-revolutionary Tehran & her escape to the US as a young adult. The book focuses on the author’s family and love life, and includes a significant amount of abuse, which is difficult to read about. I felt that it was a shame that the author didn’t share more about life in Iran in general. For me, the most interesting bits were the brief mentions of the clandestine social life of Iranian teenagers and how the regime tried to indoctrinate “Islamic values” to the youth in schools.

Unfortunately, the writing was subpar, notably in the first third or so of the book, where it could do with better structuring as it jumps all over the place. In addition, it is often repetitive, and I found myself skimming through large sections.

In sum, the author had an interesting (though tragic) early life, but her story could have been better told.

Thanks to the author for a free copy of the book in exchange for my honest review ( )

abuse, abusive-spouse, triggers, escape, Iran, turkey, emigration, family, family-dynamics, fanatics*****

This book represents the past life of a woman in Iran before and after the fall of the shah which resulted in the takeover by Sharia Law. It was the Sharia Law and the morality police that led to the horrific brutality done to her by her husband. Think battered wives have it bad here in the states? I used to work inner city hospital ER and do know the deficiencies of our systems, but when everyone from the man's family to the police KNOW that she is worthless and deserves what she gets, that's another thing entirely. Obviously she was able to escape with the help of her own family, but that, too, was fraught with other dangers. It's a hard read, but reality often is. It is well written and does have a positive resolution.
I won an ebook copy from a LibraryThing Giveaway. Yay me! ( )