30. The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali

listened on Libby

327 pgs.

2024
Adult Hist Fiction
Finished 7/2/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.49
My rating: 5
Setting: Set mostly in Tehran, moving from the 1950s forward to contemporary America, but most was in Tehran.

My comments: What a wonderful read...full of history that I can remember, relationships, feminism, family, striving for a quality life, and so many of the past and current tensions/frustrations in our world.  Beautifully written....such a great story!

Goodreads synopsis:  An “evocative read and a powerful portrait of friendship, feminism, and political activism” (People) set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran—from nationally bestselling author Marjan Kamali.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams for a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind 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 of 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.

“Reminiscent of The Kite Runner and My Brilliant Friend, The Lion Women of Tehran is a mesmerizing tale” (BookPage) of love and courage, and a sweeping exploration of how profoundly we are shaped by those we meet when we are young.

82. Unsettled by Reem Faruqi

read book, then read on Kindle and liked it less?

2021

352 pgs.
Genre/Level MidGr CRF Verse
Finished  7/30 & 12/23/2021
Goodreads rating: 4.30
My rating: 5 & 3.5
Setting: mostly contemporary Peachtree, GA

My comments: Oh my, written in gorgeous verse.  I found myself reading and rereading beautiful pages of descriptive words.  All the emotions of a 13-year-old girl uprooted from her home, country, family, and life to come to America.  Se speaks gret English, so that's a big help, and for the most part kids aren't super mean - although they tend to ignore her.  She finds a place for herself in the swimming pool which she has always loved, in her art classes, and in her home with her family.  Wonderful story with even more wonderful writing.  I always enjoy reading about and learning more about any middle eastern culture.  (Read in Kindle format a second time five months laterand didn't even remember it, so weird....)

     Cool paragraph/verse from the book:

"My hair is always smooth and silky,

it makes friends easily

with my fingers

and the comb.

If I choose to cover my hair,

like my mother,

what will my face envy?"

Goodreads synopsis:  A stirring, hopeful immigration story of Nurah and her family, who move from Karachi, Pakistan, to Peachtree City, Georgia, from Reem Faruqi, ALA Notable author of the award-winning picture book Lailah’s Lunchbox. Powerful and charming, Other Words for Home meets Front Desk in this debut middle grade novel in verse about finding your footing in a new world.

From Pakistan to Peachtree City—Nurah’s stirring story of finding your place.

When Nurah’s family moves from Karachi, Pakistan, to Peachtree City, Georgia, all she really wants is to blend in, but she stands out for all the wrong reasons. Nurah’s accent, floral-print kurtas, and tea-colored skin make her feel excluded, and she’s left to eat lunch alone under the stairwell, until she meets Stahr at swimming tryouts. Stahr covers her body when in the water, just like Nurah, but for very different reasons.

But in the water Nurah doesn’t want to blend in: She wants to stand out. She wants to win medals like her star athlete brother, Owais—who is going through struggles of his own in America—yet when sibling rivalry gets in the way, she makes a split-second decision of betrayal that changes their fates.

As Nurah slowly begins to sprout wings in the form of strong swimming arms, she gradually gains the courage to stand up to bullies, fight for what she believes in, and find her place.

PICTURE BOOK - Malala's Magic Pencil by Malal Yousafzai

Illustrated by Kerascoet (a husband wife team)

2017, Little Brown & Co.
HC $17.99
40 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  4.47 - 777 ratings

My rating:  5

Endpapers:  BOTH sides are a burst of journal and pencil in white on shiny gold background

Illustrations:  Edge-of-page to edge-of page, though lots of white is used in the background

1^st line/s:  "When I was younger, I used to watch a TV show about a boy who had a magic pencil."

My comments:  A biography/memoir for young kids, written by Malala herself.  It's a gentle story of hope and dreams, touching on the ugliness of what happened to her but not dwelling on it.  The illustrations are magical, with lots of shiny gold used throughout and on the endpapers.  Highly recommended.

Goodreads: Nobel Peace Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author Malala Yousafzai's first picture book, inspired by her own childhood.
          Malala's first picture book will inspire young readers everywhere to find the magic all around them.
          As a child in Pakistan, Malala made a wish for a magic pencil. She would use it to make everyone happy, to erase the smell of garbage from her city, to sleep an extra hour in the morning. But as she grew older, Malala saw that there were more important things to wish for. She saw a world that needed fixing. And even if she never found a magic pencil, Malala realized that she could still work hard every day to make her wishes come true. 
          This beautifully illustrated volume tells Malala's story for a younger audience and shows them the worldview that allowed Malala to hold on to hope even in the most difficult of times.

Movie - The Reluctant Fundamentalist

R (2:08)

Limited Release April 26,2013

Viewed Sunday, 5/26/2013 at The Loft 

RT Critic: 55% Audience: 71%

Cag:  6/Awesome; Absolutely bowled me over

Directed by Mira Nair (director of Monsoon Wedding, one of my all-time favorites)

IFC Films

(from the book of the same title by Mohsi Hamid)

Liev Schreiber, Kate Hudson, Kiefer Sutherland, and the wonderfully new-to-me Riz Ahmed (who stole the show, wow!)

My comments:  I had no idea what I was going to see, other than I'd taken the book out of the library and returned it before getting a chance to read it.  So when the credits came on at the beginning of the movie, I was really surprised....Hudson, Schreiber, Sutherland?  I loved the views of Pakistan, Istanbul, New York City.  What I realized when I came out was how tantalizing the "idea" of America and the "American Dream" must be to some, and I can see more and more why people from other countries hate the US.  It didn't get very good reviews from some, but I loved the way it was put together, the story it told, and the way the story was told.  So cudos to writers, actors, and director.  I loved it.

Fandango synopsis: We begin in 2011 in Lahore. At an outdoor café a Pakistani man named Changez (Riz Ahmed) tells Bobby (Liev Schreiber), an American journalist, about his experiences in the United States. Roll back ten years, and we find a younger Changez fresh from Princeton, seeking fortune and glory on Wall Street. The American Dream seems well within his grasp, complete with a smart and gorgeous artist girlfriend, Erica (Kate Hudson). But when the Twin Towers are attacked, a cultural divide slowly begins tocrack open between Changez and Erica. Changez's dream soon begins to slip into nightmare: profiled, wrongfully arrested, strip-searched and interrogated, he is transformed from a well-educated, upwardly mobile businessman to a scapegoat and perceived enemy. With time, he begins to hear the call of his own homeland. Taking us through the culturally rich and beguiling worlds of New York, Lahore and Istanbul, The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a story about conflicting ideologies where perception and suspicion have the power to determine life or death.:

MOVIE - Zero Dark Thirty

R (2:37)

Wide Release 1-11-13

at El Con Monday, Jan. 28, 2103 (alone)

RT Critic:  93 Audience:  85

Cag: 4.5/Liked it a whole lot

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

Columbia Pictures

Jessica Chastain plays the lead, is up for an academy award for her performance......

From Fandango:  Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden becomes one of the most-wanted men on the planet. The worldwide manhunt for the terrorist leader occupies the resources and attention of two U.S. presidential administrations. Ultimately, it is the work of a dedicated female operative (Jessica Chastain) that proves instrumental in finally locating bin Laden. In May 2011, elite Navy SEALs launch a nighttime strike against bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, killing him.