historical fiction
Ellie and Homa meet as school girls in Tehran and grow up to be smart, driven, women. Homa is trying to improve the world for Iranian women. Ellie is trying to live up to her mother’s expectations and seeks to maintain the comforts and luxuries she’s grown used to. The Lion Women of Tehran follows their friendship throughout periods of togetherness and separation, good times and bad, achievement and failure.
The story was extremely well-crafted. Marjan Kamali excels at creating and describing characters. I understood them—what drove them, what they felt, why they acted the way they did. I learned a lot about Iranian culture and gained a greater understanding of Iran’s historical political climate. Women’s rights were removed once religious extremists took over the governing of the country. Kamali gave small, yet sufficient, hints early in the novel about what was to come later. So the big reveal midway through the novel was no surprise, but was still heartbreaking. The way Ellie and Homa survived their situations causing each other both trouble and joy, yet always remaining close made for a good read.
I enjoyed the audiobook narrators, Mozhan Navabi and Nikki Massoud. They were good voice actors and had the appropriate vocal repertoire to bring this story to life. I give them an A.
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