In spite of all the praise for this book, I wasn't sure what to expect. I'm not a fan of Lolita or of some of the other books the author reveres. I wanted to experience her portrait of Iran during those years after the revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power, but I wasn't sure I would like all the English-literature-professor trappings.

Well, I needn't have worried about that. Azar Nafisi did a wonderful job of weaving together the hopes and aspirations of her students (mostly young women, who sat in her classes and then later continued their reading adventures in her home) and the plots and characters of the English-language novels she loves. (She even made me consider giving Gatsby another try — I'm not a fan.) Throughout, Nafisi is relentlessly opposed to religious extremism and autocratic laws and the morality squads that roam the streets of Tehran and persecute women for having a lock of hair escape from underneath a scarf.

Now and then I felt a little disheartened because nothing was going to change, except of course Nafisi eventually leaves Iran, probably forever, and some of her students do too. The writing and the depth are consistent from start to end, but sometimes I just wanted things to speed up a bit.

Overall this book made me appreciate (again) that the United States is (even in 2019) so much freer and more open than a country like Iran — although events of the past two years here have brought us dangerously closer to the kind of soul-crushing society Nafisi left behind.