Not+without+My+Daughter

Betty's husband, Moody, decided to take her and their daughter Mahtob on a two week vacation to Iran to visit Moody's family. When they get to the airport in Iran, Betty and Mahtob are not impressed with the way Iranians live. Mahtob had to use the restroom and to their horror all the bathroom was was a large room completely empty except for a couple of holes in the ground and the entire room smelled like fecies because people purposely missed the hole and went on the floor. Moody's nephew came to pick them up from the airport and brought them to Ameh Bozorg's where they would be staying during the vacation. Most of Moody's family is not happy at all that he married Betty since she was American. Nearing the end of the two weeks Betty realizes that they had to have gotten tickets three days in advance, and they were supposed to leave the next morning. When Betty asks Moody about the tickets and when they are to leave, he replies by telling her that they are not leaving Iran, ever. This is when Betty decides that it's time to take matters into her own hands and she goes to the embassy to find help to escape the country. Moody finds out of her plans and beats her, hard. He even threatens to take Mahtob away from Betty and beat her as well and lock her up. She also finds some American friends that she talks to at the park when she takes the little children out to play, those women are willing to put their lives in jeopardy to help Betty escape to freedom. Betty begins to make excuses to sneak out of the house and go to the embassy to see if she can escape to America. Betty's father is in America dying of cancer and she gets a call from her sister saying that she must come over to America and see her dad for the last time before he passes away. At first she doesn't think that Moody will let her go see her father, but he says that if she wants to go and see her father then Moody has to go with her and Mahtob must stay in Iran with a relative. Of course Betty objects to this since Mahtob is the only thing she has worth treasuring on the Eastern Hemisphere and rejects to go unless Mahtob comes a long. She also starts making some frantic calls to her family to tell them what's happening to her and her daughter. She gets into contact with someone who smuggles people out of Iran and into Turkey named Amahl. After about a year of Moody beating Betty and locking her up as well as hiding away Mahtob, Amahl finally gets everything ready to start the process of sending away Betty and her daughter to Turkey. The first thing that Betty is directed to do is to call Moody and tell her that she won't come back home if he is going to beat her and if he tries to look for her then she will call the police. This buys her some time to get to the second stage. When Moody goes to work at the hospital she and Mahtob leave to a secret meeting spot where the first driver takes them in a taxi to the next destination along with two other "families". In the town that the driver takes them to is actually a switch off at a gas station where they all enter into an ambulance. The ambulance takes them to a small barn type structure where they start to climb over a treacherous mountain range. Betty's weakness is making her think that she can't make it over the mountains, but Mahtob's determination to get far away from her dangerous father keeps Betty pushing forward to get her daughter to safety.

I learned so many things from this book. The foods that they eat are very rich and sugary. The way of eating for them is totally different from any American culture, all of the men sit around the floor in a circle and the women put the food on the floor in front of them. They literally dig into the bowls and plates and make a huge mess. Then when the men are done the women sit either all alone or on the opposite side of the room from their husbands and eat the same way the men do. The houses in general were disgusting, dusty, grimy, greasy and almost never cleaned. The worst part of the house is the kitchen, there are cockroaches on the walls and in the food and all over the sink and even in the fridge, if there was one. In the book all of the kitchens Betty was in were slime covered and the walls were molded and splattered with grease and oil. There was always a description of the sugar that was trailing on the floor. Another thing a learned is that the men treated the women terribly. The poor women were often yelled at, beaten, locked away, and occasionally beaten so bad they either died or were in critical conditions. Women like Betty were given little to no freedom. They couldn't go shopping, do the laundry, or even leave the house without being accompanied by a man. The men were also very, very lazy. Moody never actually tried to help his wife do anything. He didn't make the bed, take care of Mahtob, clean the dishes, or even clean up after himself. All that the men did all day was lounge around in chairs and sleep or eat.-Kirstin

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes slight violence and someone who is in constant danger of being killed or arrested. -Kirstin