This book wasn't what I expected, which isn't a bad thing. It slowed down my reading a bit--that and being hardcover--but once I got the swing of the story it worked pretty well.

I thought it was going to be a fairly simple story of young lesbian love overcoming all obstacles. Well, I won't spoil it, but there was a lot more going on. Farizan uses the basis of two girls in love to explore the secret lives of LGBT people in Iran, a world of payoffs, corruption, and the ever-present possibility of a police sanctioned stoning. Or just a random police-inflicted torture/beating.

Knowing that this is the way whole countries operate--because I read Daily Kos; I know what's going on--somehow didn't prepare me for experiencing it from another's POV the way Farizan enables us to do.

Although ***Mild Spoiler Alert*** it has a happy enough ending, there's just no substitute for a country where freedom is technically legal, often achievable, and most of all expected.