Unveiled: Love and Death Among the Ayatollahs

Rating:
Summary: Highly questionable & inaccurate
Review: A very stereotype-filled book, totally superficial and misleading. For example, many of the laws regarding the status of women in iran which this author mentions (such as needing the written permission of a father or husband to travel abroad) were in place before the 1979 Islamic revolution when the US-backed Shah was in power, and as for the "oppressive" chador - it is the standard clothing of the vast majority of Iranian women who simply consider it normal part of their customary clothes, just as a typical Western woman considers pants or a blouse to be "normal." Despite the stereotype of the "oppressed hareem girl" promoted by this book, Iranian women are in fact highly politically active, are regularly elected to public office, and were active participants in the 1979 Islamic revolution. Things are not as black-and-white as this book implies. The reader would therefore do better to look elsewhere for an accurate and unbiased exposition of gender roles in modern, post-revolutionary Iran.

Rating:
Summary: Hide this book under the veil
Review: After 20 pages, I was bored. I forced myself to read 85 pages, and it did not get better. There are too many family members involved in the sub-plots which only confuses the reader, rather than enhancing the story of the main character. I confess, I never finished the book. Maybe it gets better.... ?

Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: As an Iranian woman who has experienced life in both pre and post revolutionary Iran, I absolutely loved this book. Because this book unveiled the ugly truth about women's condition in Iran, especially in the late 80s/early 90s, many fellow Iranians have criticised this book. Iran's image has been ruined due to political and media's exaggeration of some events in the past 2 decades; We can't efford to have anymore negative images of Iran being told to the people abroad. However, regardless of country's image or what not, I believe that almost every word written in the book is absolute truth. It is well written without cover ups. We must tell more of these truthful stories about Iranian women and their terrible position in the Islamic tyranny of Iran.

Rating:
Summary: Something to read when you can't find anything else.
Review: First on the writing style. This book is extremely hard to read and difficult to follow because she skips around too much and gets off subject. One minute she's 30-something, next line she flashes back to age 10 with no warning. I am an American Muslim and I don't pretend to know everything that goes on the world, especially in Shia Iran. So I can't say if she is telling the truth or not but for God's sake why do you expect IRAN to be like UK? It makes no sence to me to complain about all the stuff that happened when it was HER own decision to go there, not once but TWICE. If it was too much to handle the fisrt time WHY GO BACK? I think she brought all her hardship on herself. Not every Muslim is going to be as strict as the next. If you can't handle it, find a more laidback environment and live the kind of life you want. Don't go to one of the strictest countries (Shia/Islam-wise) and expect the country to change for you. AHHHHHH!

Rating:
Summary: Extremely confusing
Review: From the first chapter, this book was totally confusing. There are many names of relatives and friends that are almost impossible to keep track of during the contest of the book. As I went through it, I was looking for some clue to get the meanings of some words in Farsi, because the book did not include a summary of the foreign words and their corresponding meaning in English. I understand that there are some words that don't have an exact translation into English, however, I expected at least an aproximaition. I would not recommend this book, specially because the purpose of the author at writing her story is not clear. Even though the author had the opportunity to go back to the West and forget about her "nightmare" in Iran, she returned to her homeland for the second time and I don't think it is fair for a society to be described with such bitterness due to a unpleasant personal experience.

Rating:
Summary: Inaccurate
Review: Having been born to a well educated professional Iranian family myself, and having lived in Iran during those post revolutionary years, I find it very hard to believe that an Oxford educated woman in her mid thirties, would claim to come from "nobility" and to have family members married off at 14 yrs of age tolerating wife beating husbands who would take additional wives and steal their fortune. I also cannot understand how a woman who has been brought up in the West and is supposedly a journalist, would jump into a marriage with a revolutionary without investigating the person's background, to later discover that he had another wife??? These are just a few questions that would cross any reader's mind.
During the 13 years which I lived in post-revolutionary Iran, I had only heard about these type occurences in the lower middle class or low SES families. I have seen Iranian women (those who I associated with) as very dignified, well educated and respectable (and respected by their husbands). If they were to fall into a trap as described by Ms. Mostashar, they would get out. Any person who has some understanding of the changes which have taken place after the falling of the Shah's regime would attest to how the Women's rights movement in Iran has progressed. I think Mrs. Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner would say the same. I do not claim that the system is perfect, but it is definitely improving. I think that the likes of Ms. Mostashar and Ms. Betty Mahmoudi have had bad experiences, with some trashy people in Iran, and have used their experience as a means of generalizing and stereotyping the Iranians. Also, Ms. Mostashar has somewhat turned her "biography" into a trashy novel, which may be a marketing technique-this is quite distasteful. It appears that this biography has been used to seek revenge rather than to inform.

Rating:
Summary: IM GLAD I BORROWED, AND NOT BOUGHT THE BOOK!!
Review: I agree, this book was totally "CONFUSING" and "UNTIDY". I felt the writer was totally self centered,with her constant chatter about her wealth and designer clothing, was it really necessary to keep mentioning such irrelevent matters? One other thing, her sense of humor just did not suit her. Maybe her next book will be a little more humble.

Rating:
Summary: poorly written, poorly edited
Review: I expected to learn something by reading this book, but unfortunately it's very poorly written and edited--I think both author and publisher are at fault here. Worse, I felt no sympathy at all for this woman by the end of the book--and I'm a feminist! This is not the memoirs of a sane or rational person. She is certainly largely to blame for her troubles, in fact I think she's as mentally unstable as her husband. I bought this book merely for one's woman's perspective on what it must be like to live in Iran, but the book failed to deliver even that. The author lacks any insight into her own mental state and her descriptions of daily life are vague and confused.

Rating:
Summary: Tiresome yet Intriguing
Review: I had to read this book for a sociology class, and as a literature student I was very disgusted with the poor writing of what might otherwise have been a captivating story. The main complaint I offer is that Ms. Mosteshar uses cliche and hackneyed political catch-prases over and over in order to emphasize the awful conditions for Iranian women. The conditions I do not dispute, but the means of communication needs help. Without the family tree at the front of the book I would have quit five pages into it, and even when I kept one finger there as a reference, I still did not know who was who and why they were important or related to the main story! A simpler mode of narration with less characters involved would have made this a very powerful book. I will say that Ms. Mosteshar has a reletively good position in relation to her (former) homeland, and presents many sides to the religious and political issues surrounding her trials. I would recommend this book only to people already interested in Iran's history or women's rights--and those with large amounts of patience.

Rating:
Summary: Loved it.
Review: I truly enjoyed this book as well as her sense of humor. I thought that a good review of this book was called for here, as the other two are a bit negative...I didn't find it untidy, thank you, and don't think people should be discouraged from reading it by reading these reviews. I'm not going to actually "review" it, I just want to say that it I enjoyed it and highly recommend it!!!