This is simply the best book I have read in a great while. Several issues are addressed: life in the US as a child of immigrants/exiles and how one conceptualizes (and mythologizes) "the old country"; life in Iran as an American-Iranian: someone who feels like they should (are obligated to?) belong but somehow never quite gets all the pieces to fit; and trying to tie these identities together into a whole person.

With few Americans traveling abroad for more than 1-2 week vacations and little opportunity to be more than tourists where ever we go (or to ever be able to understand what it means to move your life to another country, let alone a country where you are considered suspect); this book moves people beyond thinking of Iran as simply "evil", "scary", etc. Life and people there, like anywhere, is complicated and many things to many people. The Western view of Iran has traditionally been to focus on the terrible and extreme or conversely to romanticise it and see only the mythical, the static ancient history.

Whichever side of the coin most Americans tend to focus on, it is usually an uncomplicated, uninformed view of the nation and the people. This book allows the reader a peek into a small section of life there to see ugly, wonderful, beautiful, happy, terrified, hopeful, dispondent people.
She never claims to represent anyone other than herself, she doesn't try to speak for Iran or Iranians or Iranian Americans- she just lets us look at the world through her eyes for a little while.

Azadeh Moaveni also allows us to follow her in her search for a place and identity that seems perpetually just out of reach. Like the tale about the Simorgh, the journey to find this place and identity eventually leads her (and the reader) to look within.

Unfortunately this review can't do the book justice- I highly recommend this book to anyone, period.