“Honeymoon in Tehran” is by Azadeh Moaveni. I was fortunate to receive an advance reader’s copy (ARC) through the Library Thing Early Reviewer program. I will put up a similar edition of this review on Library Thing.

Note:  This book fits in the “Memoirs” Category of the World Citizen Challenge I’m participating in.

I had read “Lipstick Jihad” a couple years ago by Ms. Moaveni, so I looked forward to reading “Honeymoon in Tehran”. “Lipstick Jihad” was Ms. Moaveni’s memoir of her growing up as an Iranian-American in California and then after college, spending time in Tehran as a journalist. That book also covered the youth culture of Tehran. One thing I remember vividly from that book was that the Islamic Republic’s attempts to make the young people pious and chaste actually had the opposite effect–they became obsessed with sex instead.

With “Honeymoon in Tehran”, Ms. Moaveni returns to Iran in 2005 to cover the presidential election and observes Ahmadinejad’s rise in power. She puzzles over how he could have possibly won because all indications showed that Rafsanjani was leading. Could the election have been rigged by the higher-ups? The president in Iran is not the “top dog” in the Iranian government. After Ahmadinejad becomes president, the rule over Iran becomes even more fundamentalist.

Meanwhile, something else very interesting is happening. Ms. Moaveni falls in love with another Iranian, a man named Arash. Then they learn they are going to have a baby together. They had already been discussing wedding plans, but the baby only hurried along the plans. During the wedding planning, the pregnancy had to be kept secret as well or there might have been dire consequences for Ms. Moaveni. Even though Ms. Moaveni was 29 years old at the time, she was required to obtain permission in person from her father to allow her to marry. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple, since her father was living in California. So there were a lot more hoops that to jump through before they could finally go ahead and get married.

Once they got married, they had a reception later– but had to search high and low for a place that would allow men and women to mix together. Most receptions in Iran have the bride and women in one room and the groom and men in another. Places that were willing to host a mixed reception also required police protection so that the rule-breakers would not (hopefully) be discovered.

Incidents like these, and the Ahmadinejad government’s increased demands on the people (such as increasingly conservative dress for women) might make you think that Ms. Moaveni would develop an overall dislike for Iran. Not so. She has Iranian friends and extended family members that she feels very close to. She also has an respect for the people and culture of Iran. Over the centuries, and to this day, there has been a struggle to reconcile Persian and Islamic culture and traditions in Iran.

After the birth of Ms. Moaveni’s baby boy, she starts to consider the ramifications of raising a child in the current culture of Iran. Meanwhile, the government increases its harassment towards journalists, including Ms. Moaveni, and increases censorship. It gets to the point where she worries about her own safety and very real possibility of arrest if she continues being a reporter. So after much soul-searching, she and her new family leave Iran. They now currently live in London and she continues to report on Iran and the Middle East.

I found “Honeymoon in Tehran” an engrossing book although it is not a quick and breezy read, which might be implied by the book’s title and current book cover. I learned quite a bit from this book, some of which I have shared above. It is not necessary to have read “Lipstick Jihad” before reading “Honeymoon in Tehran”. However, “Honeymoon in Tehran” is not yet available for sale until February 3rd, so there is time to read “Lipstick Jihad” first if you want to.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 10th, 2009 at 1:25 AM and is filed under Early Reviewer program, Library Thing, book review, books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.