Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming 'lion women.'
But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls’ high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.
Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.
Comment: This book caught my eye at the end of last year and I've convinced my buddy read friend to try it. In a way, the blurb reminded me of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, a book that made me cry buckets but which was also about two friends and set in a region where politics and religion changed the lives of the inhabitants. I wanted to see if this one would be as emotional as that one had been.
As a child, Ellie meets Homa after moving downtown with her mother, in the follow up of the death of her father. Homa isn't like anyone she was used to but as children this means nothing and they quickly become friends. However, Ellie's mother isn't happy and after a while they go back to the richer part of Tehran again and, with time, memories of Homa start dissipating... until the day Homa shows up at Ellie's more elite school and immediately recognizes her. They slowly reconnect despite the difference in status but Homa is as brilliant and as passionate about the reform of the country as her communist father, arrested for political dissidence. The problem is that the country isn't stable and new forces want to implement terrible laws...
I will say this book caught my at a slightly complicated moment and it took em four days to read it when two would have been my norm. Still, as soon as I could spend more time with it without interruptions, I got my stride back and quickly finish it. It also helps that this story, unlike the one I thought I could compare with and that I named back there, wasn't as devastatingly heartbreaking.
In a way, this is perhaps my biggest disappointment in this book, that it had all the ingredients and set up to be incredible but it didn't quite reach the emotional level I anticipated. I can suppose the author's intention was never to elevate the drama, but it seems as if the writing and the plot choices weren't as daring; at least this is how I see it.
Ellie has a privileged background and she is the narrator for most of the novel. I think her character is quite realistic especially when so much of her attention as a young girl and a teenager is focused on boys, silly things and even jealousy, but it means that I could not sympathize with her in some situations and she feels a little vain and careless. I never warmed up to her and I can only speculate why is she the main character and not Homa, whom would have made for a much more obvious choice.
As a matter of fact, Homa is more than special, she is larger than life and a defender of her country and I thought her fate at a time things were so unstable would be much harder to go through. However, this was not case and the tragedies she faces never really touched me in a deep level. I think this has more to do with writing style than actual content, for what happens to her and to others around her should be heartbreaking and is, on an intellectual level. But even the chapters she narrates here and there weren't enough to really convince me.
On the background of the girls' lives and wherever they are, we keep having awareness of what is happening, politically, in Iran, during the time the novel takes place. The girls are kids in the early 60s so we are told, as part of the plot, of what happens in some key years while the story develops, following the girls since they are children until adulthood. I actually liked this element of the story a lot more than the fictional sections. If the author's goal was to "teach" something, she achieved it. I can see how this displeases some readers for it's not informative enough but lets us remember the goal was not to present a thorough study on Iran's history.
To me, this was a positive element because it does summarize key situations and makes some things feel easier to understand, considering what I know of Iran, in general. To me, it also helps to give perspective if the information is given while we read about characters and how the changes/situations would affect their lives.
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