I loved this story. I read for hours. It was very captivating. It is a great story of friendship and has many twists and turns in their friendship.
The story starts out in 1981 and then goes back to the 1950's to tell the story that leads up to 1981. There is a Epilogue set in 2022 to wrap things all up nicely.
Notes:
Characters:
Ellie (full name: Elaheh, means goddess) - is a descendant of royalty - a fact that is really important to her mother
Mehrdad - Ellie's husband
Homa - Ellie's best friend. They meet on the first day of school. Ellie's mother always looks down her nose on this friendship, thinking Homa isn't quite fancy enough for her to associate with. Her name is a type of bird that never rests on the ground (p. 20). Homa really never does rest on the ground. She doesn't worry about being like anyone else. She has her passions and pursues them. She is a true friend to Ellie and a breath of fresh air again and again.
Ellie's father dies early on in her life. She thinks he died of turbuculosis. Ellie begrudges her mother for not ever telling her much about her father - until one day they have a good heart to heart and Ellie learns the truth about him (infidelity, etc)
Uncle Massoud - Ellie's uncle who marries her mother as per the tradition in their culture. He is a good husband to her mother and kind to Ellie. He has another brother but he married a Russian and settled there and is never a part of the story again. Uncle Massoud seems like a conselation prize - but that might be because of Ellie's mother's snootiness.
Friendship theme:
- Women's friendships are important and the little things we do for each other and give each other are continual reminders of these wonderful friends.
p. 4 Earlier that morning, in our apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, my husband, Mehrdad, had tried to comfort me with breakfast. He prepared toast with feta cheese and cherry jam. He brewed bergamot tea. But I couldn't eat or drink. The jam was made from Homa's recipe. The bergamot tea in the white teapot adorned with two pink roses reminded me of her. With the arrival of her letter, her absence dominated my life all over again
There was a lot of description about the food - which I kind of expected to play a bigger part - but it never really did. It felt like a bit of a tangent. Perhaps the author really loves the Iranian food and wanted to share that love. Not sure.
Words of the wiser:
From Ellie's mother (a complicated figure in her life!): Jealousy has powerful energy. It can swirl in the air and destruct true happiness.
- This advice is interesting because in many ways, Ellie's mother was so difficult. So toxic. However, she was right with this advice!
p. 126 From Ellie's mother: "Even those who love you most can ruin your life, you know, Ellie." Mother said. "Even the ones you trust the most."
- She always had a damper on Ellie's wonderful moments.
p. 155 I would teach my own children differently. I would teach them that the world is filled with people who care deeply about them and want to see them thrive. Imagine that. Imagine if I could not just outgrow my own toxic vices but also transmit to my children the best of traits. Yes, I would raise secure, confident people. I would break the cycle of suspicion and superiority and paranoia that seemed to run in my family line.
The burden of a complaining mother:
p. 28 Sarah, I had a feeling she wasn't the kind of mother who complained to her children about her woes (Ellie's mother was that kind of mother)
Again and again:
Jealousy is something that comes up again and again.
p. 28 I (Ellie) adored her (Homa).
I was already jealous of her.
p, 46 When Homa had found out I was First-in-Class, she had beamed with excitement, squeezed me hard, and even lifted me off the ground by a few centimeters. And I burdened with my own stupid personality traits, was jealous of her ability not to be jealous.
- p. 191 Poor Ellie keeps having pregnancy loss: Mother made potions of saffron dissolved in bone broth for me to drink. She took to praying five times a day to somehow entreat God to change y rate. Too little, too late was her transformation into someone devout. Her prayers didn't work. Her potions didn't materialize what we most wanted.
Mother claimed it was the evil eye at work. "All those people," she said, "jealous of our health and wealth. All those envious souls casting a hex on us."
Rituals to be rid of:
p. 187 When Mehrdad and Ellie marry, he negotiates not continuing a ritual:
Mehrdad's mom, gracious and calm as ever, agreed that we would be left alone and forgo the old-fashioned handkerchief hoopla surrounding the marriage night. With the mother of the groom decreeing it, the rest of the close female relatives - even my social - climbing mother - gave in. I breathed a sight of relief that I wouldn't be forced to prove that Mehrdad was my first in every way. He was, of course, but the entire "proof" theatre felt so demeaning. I was happy to skip it.
Goodreads says:
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.
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