Not Without My Daughter

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Summary: LOVED IT, LIVED IT, LOVED IT!!!
Review: This book is a great read! I don't know much about Iran, but thanks to this incredibly touching book, now I do! It's shows you just can't be too careful when you go to unknown places. If you liked this book, there is another good book I recommend, Midnight Express. Both of these books are very touching, and they are both written by William Hoffer. These books are great examples of peoples struggles with lands with outlandish traditions, personal hygenes and what not. I highly reccommend the movie too, with Sally Field. When you read this book, you just can't help feeling that it's SOO real. If you have to have only two books about the middle east, read Not Without My Daughter, and Midnight Express. And don't read anything else, cause you won't have too! God bless America, and it's freedom fries!

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Summary: IT'S ALL ABOUT MONEY
Review: Don't you think it's rather odd that the co-author of this book, William Hoffer, is the co-author of another book of it's kind, Midnight Express? Apparently William Hoffer hit gold with Midnight Express in the 70's, so he stuck to his formula: Write a sensational, over-dramatic, one sided, racist book for people who don't and will never know anything else about the middle east. There sure is an audience for it in America!
I don't know which one is more sad, the man who feeds on the racism and ignorance of the masses for money and fame, or the masses of racist and ignorant people that don't care to know any better.
Thank you Mr Hoffer, I hope your books brought you a great deal success.

Rating:
Summary: Real
Review: This story is definitly true. Her husband's family even said so. This owman may be slightly prejudiced against Iranians now but so would say an Iranian who came to America and was bashed for being Iranian. Anyway this book was very interesting and very REAL.

Rating:
Summary: Not without my Daughter
Review: I am an 18 year old female in the southeast corner of Washington State.I read the book Not without my daughter in class.I found this book to be good and would give it 3 stars.It is about a mother and daughter being held against their will in Iran.Throughout the book it goes through the struggles they encounter while trying to escape.Her husband is an Iranian man who wanted control so he took them,on what was supposed to be a 2-week vacation.He beats his wife when she tries to escape and when she does not obey.Betty(mother)meets people in Iran who try to help her out of the country. Read the book to find out whether they make it out together or are they stuck in Iran forever.

Rating:
Summary: Educational and Interesting
Review: Not Without My Daughter was an interesting book with tons of facts about Iran and the Muslim culture. It begins a bit boring with all of the facts and becomes more confusing as the author tries to explain things about the culture that is hard for people who have never been in those kind of situations to understand. It is very educational and exciting at the same time. You are learning things while wondereing if she is going to make it or get caught. It mixes your emotions when Moody changes his actions and moods so easily from being a sweet and loving father and husband to an abusive and enraged man. You feel bad for Betty and by being a girl your womanly instincts automatically come out and become furious with him that he could treat them with such disrespect. I believe it would have been very difficult for her to find a way out but I would have done the same things and never would have left my child there to be raised by that mad man and his horrible family. Over all this was a good book it just took me a couple chapters to get into it,but once you do,it's hard to put it down.

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Summary: so misleading
Review: Having lived in Iran for seven years as an American wife of an Iranian I was disturbed to read this book's descriptions of life in Iran. I cannot dispute that one woman could have terrible experiences, but it is disturbing that she makes little effort to explain how unusual her experience was. Unfortunately there are few other memoirs by Americans who lived in Iran to compare with this one. We tend to be fascinating by the exotic other and neglect to describe how many common qualities shared across the globe. Many of my Iranian friends were hurt and offended by the misleading descriptions. If you read this book, make sure to read something to counterbalance it, maybe Persian Pilgrimages. In contrast to Betty, I found my Iranian relatives to be hospitable, warm and kind, and concerned for a person alone without her family. I found that Americans who did not like Iran were primarily those who wanted it to be a replication of the US. It is not. But I met no American who was terrorized or abused. Instead, despite American aid to Iraq - which was attacking Iran in the 1980's, and American Aid to the dictatorial Shah in the 1970's, Iranians felt overwhelmingly positive towards Americans....though they had some distorted views about us as well, imagining that women are frequently [molested] in the streets in the US (well it happens but not frequently) ... Do we need books that reinforce or dispel our [myths]?

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Summary: People Need to be Fair
Review: I read all of the reviews about this book and was suprised to see how many people unleashed hateful words on a woman who went through a tramautic ordeal. Some of the incidents in the story may have been embellished (I'm not saying they are, but it is possible), probably because anyone who's been through something that scared them to death is going to use the most elaborate and descriptive words/details to get the story out. But the fact here is, NONE OF US WERE THERE. It is so wrong for people to judge her and tell her that she is a liar and just trying to make money by trashing the Iranians and their country. If none of us were there, we have no right to discount her story. Yes, it may be an unusual story, and I'm sure there are many American women in Iran who are happy and in good marriages. But just because her story is out of the norm doesn't mean it couldn't happen. I have read the book and seen the movie and while I enjoyed both, it didn't make me think Iranians were barbaric, dirty people who couldn't be civilized or educated. I'm not that easily brainwashed. It is funny to me that people are getting this worked up over a book someone wrote. It's her story and her opinions of what happened to her. Why does it bother everyone so much what she says and thinks of Iran? Just because she says it doesn't mean everyone will automatically think Iranians are scum of the earth. I believe all people, regardless of race, are equal human beings. To Americans, Iranians, and everyone, be proud of your heritage and culture and don't be so worried about what other people think.

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Summary: No Way Out
Review: The book not without my daughter is a very good book. It is thrilling and heart beating. This was a book that got me hooked on it and when I read it I did not want to put it down. This is a sad story and no ladie should be treated the way Betty was treated. I think it takes lots of courage to do what Betty did. Betty told a story like no one has ever told a story and this has to hurt and give her pain inside just to tell this story. Put yourself in her shoes and lets think of what we have and cherish it.

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Summary: Not Without My Daughter: A True Story of Courage
Review: "Not Without My Daughter" is an intense novel concerning some of the most horrific challenges a mother could ever face. Betty Mahmoody was held hostage in Iran with her 5 year-old daughter, Matob. Her husband who was formally from this tyrant land had just returned to the faith of the Isalm religion. I thought her story was amazing. The trials this mother had to face day after day in a world that loathed Americans blew my mind. I kept putting myself in her shoes throughout the book and comparing myself with her. I would have to say I definitely wouldn't have had as much courage as she did. This novel is so great mainly because of the fact that it gives so much hope to almost any situation in life. If she could make it through all that, we can make it through hard times too!

Rating:
Summary: An Extremely Engrossing Read...
Review: Not Without My Daughter is the true story/biography of Betty Mahmoody, who accompanies her husband on a supposed two-week vacation to his native homeland, Iran, along with their daughter. Betty is well aware of the fact that once in Iran, she has nearly no rights, contrary to that of an American woman. As a woman, and especially an American she is looked down upon by others. A

This book, while coming under heavy criticism for it's portrayal of the Iranian lifestyle and customs is still quite a good read. The book is somewhat suspenseful, always with plot twists and intricate detail. The detail is so intricate, in fact, that I read it over and over.

However, many events in the book are supposed to be exaagerated. I do not believe this, because the book is taking place during a time period in which Iran is embroiled in a bitter war with Iraq, which changes every single circumstance in the perspective of a reader.

Not Without My Daughter is almost like a survival story, because Betty makes choices and she vows to escape with her daughter several times in the story. The mother-daughter bond is a constant theme in this story as children belong to the father in Iran and no one can simply identify with Betty's maternal instinct.

Despite the fact that people think it is over-exxagerated, it really is not. However, times have changed, and the book can not be put in any time period and work with the reader. Reading this book will give you an insight into what it is like in third-world countries like Iran, coupled with a mother and child's desperate desire for freedom. A compelling, yet disturbing book, Not Without My Daughter is an interesting, motivational, and overall dramatic book for someone looking to be deeply sensitized in an adventure.

P.S. - The book is definetely more in-depth and more detailed than the made for TV movie, starring Sally Field, produced by Pathe Entertainment, and released in 1991.