Helpful Score: 4
Posing as newlyweds on their honeymoon, Canadian Alison Wearing and a male friend make a five-month clockwise tour of Iran. Wearing's travelogue describes her experiences wearing the hijab and chador, but mostly her encounters with the Iranian people, recorded in their English. What I enjoyed most about the book was the vicarious experience of meeting such kind, excited, generous people, many of them random strangers inviting the foreign couple to their homes, showing them around town, or offering handfuls of food -- practicing the Persian custom of ta'arouf.
However, I couldn't help but be annoyed by the author-narrator. She admittedly lost a travel companion on a previous trip because she was too absorbed in a book. She and her "husband" don't get along on the trip. It seems like she did little to no research about Iran beforehand. Thus at times I couldn't help but feel they were a couple of Westerners mooching off the generosity of strangers, who would not reciprocate the hospitality back home. Wearing also has a tendency to give her impressions in sentence fragments, a stylistic choice which doesn't suit me.
But this book is still great as vicarious travel. It's not like I would be going on a Persian honeymoon anytime soon.
However, I couldn't help but be annoyed by the author-narrator. She admittedly lost a travel companion on a previous trip because she was too absorbed in a book. She and her "husband" don't get along on the trip. It seems like she did little to no research about Iran beforehand. Thus at times I couldn't help but feel they were a couple of Westerners mooching off the generosity of strangers, who would not reciprocate the hospitality back home. Wearing also has a tendency to give her impressions in sentence fragments, a stylistic choice which doesn't suit me.
But this book is still great as vicarious travel. It's not like I would be going on a Persian honeymoon anytime soon.
Helpful Score: 3
Story written by a white Canadian woman who went to Iran with her roommateâa gay male friend who pretends to be her husband complete with faked marriage certificate, for the sake of safety and proprietyâon their honeymoon. They actually spent months in the country, traveling from city to city, village to village, enduring things I cannot even imagine tolerating for a day or two. Adeptly woven story of their experiences and encounters with real people they met there, very interesting everyday people, generous of spirit and of themselves. A big dose of culture shock served up warm, with a touch of humor and a lot of interesting insights. Loved this book!
Helpful Score: 3
Excellent travel memoir about a Canadian woman's voyages through modern Iran under the guise of a honeymoon. (In reality, her "husband" is her gay roommate). Describes the people and places they visited without overemphasizing the political situation. Portrays Iran as a country with a difficult political situation but with a warm, likeable populace.
Helpful Score: 2
A fascinating look into the Iran of today, from a Canadian woman's point of view. It shows you a side of Iran that you will not get from the nightly news.
