My book club and I are meeting soon to discuss this month’s chosen book, The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali. This might sound a little odd, but as soon as I learned the title of our chosen text, I had a sneaking suspicion it would be a damn good book, and I wasn’t wrong in my hunch.
This book is considered to be historical fiction, and it was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award, ‘Readers’ Favourite Historical Fiction,’ in 2024. Here is a synopsis of the story, pulled from goodreads.com.
“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,” the web page explains.
I will say that the first few chapters are a little slow, and it might be difficult for some readers to fully invest in the story. I assure you, though, that this book is absolutely worth reading, and I imagine Ellie and Homa, and the women of Iran in a general sense, will continue to have an effect on me long after I finish reading this book.
The Lion Women of Tehran is undoubtedly a read and not a rid.
Photo by Matias North on Unsplash
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