Not Without My Daughter by Betty Mahmoody, William Hoffer
|
List Price: Our Price: $5.14 You Save: $3.85 (43%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Not Without My Daughter
Book Review: Gripping tale of a real life experience
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm sure this book is biased, since Betty Mahmoody is writing about her own experiences as an American woman in an unfamiliar culture with a husband who by her account changed drastically in personality while they were there and became abusive and refused to allow her to leave with her child. Even if it is biased or sensational, it should be read as a tale of a culture clash and what can happen when a marriage goes bad between a western woman and an Islamic man.
Most Islamic countries will automatically give custody of a child to the father. If the mother is allowed to keep custody of a preteen girl, it will probably be only within the Islamic country, only if she doesn't remarry a non-Muslim, and only if her behavior fits with a strict Islamic code. Boys are taken away from their mothers even younger than girls. Even in the past five years there have been several stories about women whose husbands or boyfriends have taken their children to Saudi Arabia or Bahrain or Jordan or various other Islamic countries and the women couldn't get them back or mothers who have visited those countries with their children and been refused permission to leave because the father or father's family won't allow it. Women don't have the same rights to their children in Islamic countries as they do in the United States or other western countries. These kids will usually have passports from the father's country so he can travel with the kids using those passports even if an American judge has ordered that the child stay in the United States. This is the type of situation that Mahmoody ran into 25 years ago when she wanted to leave with Mahtob and it hasn't changed much. Any woman marrying a man from one of these countries should be aware of the differences in child custody laws and go into the marriage clear-eyed. If the marriage stays good, she won't have to worry, but if it goes bad there is some risk. Likewise, a man marrying a western woman should be aware of American custody laws that usually will require him to share custody of a child with a woman and will give her equal say regarding religion, schooling, and every other aspect of the child's life until the age of 18.
Book Review: Read the Second Book!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved this book and I feel that Betty Mahmoody was correct in everything she did. To those of you that call her book prejudice,you are very ignorant! If anyone beat me up and took my child and threatened our lives and kept me in a place like Iran, I'd have done the same thing. If you read For the Love of a Child, the 2nd book by Betty, you'll see how hard she tried not to depict all Iranians as bad. You also find that her daughter still loves her dad, but she's afraid of him because he BEAT HER UP! Betty misses her husband and remembers good things. She also encourages Mahtob to be proud of her Iranian heritage and they are still friends with many Middle Eastern people. Parental child abduction is a huge problem in the world and Betty is working to help stop it. Please read this book if you feel like the first one offended you! I've been to the Middle East and, sadly most Muslim men are raised to act the way Betty's husband did. Its a fact! If you read the first book! more closely, maybe you'll see that the daughter CHOSE to leave with her mom, and Betty tried to reason with her husband. She had every right to return to their country of citizenship, as is the law in many countries now because of these problems! Mahtob is a Christian by her own choice, why would she want to live in an Islamic country where all women are treated like badly and you can't worship your own god? This book was written extremely well by a woman who had to relive a nightmare to get her story to people like us. I am a big supporter of this woman and her literature. This book has moved me like no other, I felt like I went through everything they did, and that is what she was aiming for. Victims like Betty and Mahtob were only fighting for what every human lives for, their freedom. I know I sound like a line from Braveheart, but its true. And I was sickened by every petty comment made about bigotry being the main point in the book. The whole book is one big fact, a sl! ap in the face with reality, so just try and accept it inst! ead of being in denial.Book Review: Gripping and disturbing
Summary: 5 Stars
I started the book yesterday and couldn't put it down. It was a very intense, powerful story and very well written.
Betty Mahmoody finds herself and her daughter trapped in Iran and forbidden by her husband to return to the USA. The story covers the 18 months during which she lives in Tehran, meeting his family, making friends, trying to adjust, while all the while desperate to leave.
Some reviewers talk about the book's comment on Arab society and its backward and often lunatic attitudes to women. For me, it was more a story of different characters: the family members who sometimes intervened to help, the shopkeepers and embassy staff who provided support, the school from which she was able to sneek off and finally the smuggling ring that got her out. The people in the book are lifelike and real, with their own motives, emotions, limitations and responsibilities.
In the book the Iranian government appears to act like many third word governments (i.e. not very well!) But the religious side added a new dimension. The book provides a facinating insight into the overlap between personal religious belief, state enforcement and the justification and acceptance of those who believe in the system.
Most disturbing for me was the lack of power the US Government had to assist her. While they provide passports, they were not actually valid to leave the country with, and they certainly were not able to spirit Betty and her daughter out. Perhaps this is to be expected given that the US and Iran don't see eye to eye and perhaps the US simply doesn't have the power to act in a hostile foreign country. Perhaps people like Betty who gloss over their worries and head to Iran do not deserve more support? Perhaps in the last 20 years this has been fixed? I don't know. But in any case it was a very sobering tale.
I highly recommend this riveting book for those interested in a personal view of an outsider caught in the Islamic Revolution.
Book Review: An Extremely Engrossing Read...
Summary: 5 Stars
Not Without My Daughter is the true story/biography of Betty Mahmoody, who accompanies her husband on a supposed two-week vacation to his native homeland, Iran, along with their daughter. Betty is well aware of the fact that once in Iran, she has nearly no rights, contrary to that of an American woman. As a woman, and especially an American she is looked down upon by others. AThis book, while coming under heavy criticism for it's portrayal of the Iranian lifestyle and customs is still quite a good read. The book is somewhat suspenseful, always with plot twists and intricate detail. The detail is so intricate, in fact, that I read it over and over.
However, many events in the book are supposed to be exaagerated. I do not believe this, because the book is taking place during a time period in which Iran is embroiled in a bitter war with Iraq, which changes every single circumstance in the perspective of a reader.
Not Without My Daughter is almost like a survival story, because Betty makes choices and she vows to escape with her daughter several times in the story. The mother-daughter bond is a constant theme in this story as children belong to the father in Iran and no one can simply identify with Betty's maternal instinct.
Despite the fact that people think it is over-exxagerated, it really is not. However, times have changed, and the book can not be put in any time period and work with the reader. Reading this book will give you an insight into what it is like in third-world countries like Iran, coupled with a mother and child's desperate desire for freedom. A compelling, yet disturbing book, Not Without My Daughter is an interesting, motivational, and overall dramatic book for someone looking to be deeply sensitized in an adventure.
P.S. - The book is definetely more in-depth and more detailed than the made for TV movie, starring Sally Field, produced by Pathe Entertainment, and released in 1991.
Book Review: What people endure for freedom
Summary: 5 Stars
For Betty and Mahtob, what began as a two week family vacation with their husband and father ended in Turkey eighteen months later after an exhausting and terrifying journey through some of the harshest terrain on the planet. With each step taken toward their quest for freedom they risked their lives, but, after having been forced to exist in a culture where women are treated as second class citizens and where they would not be able to experience the freedom of choice (within boundaries, of course) to which every individual is entitled, they each knew that it was a risk that they would have to take. If the real definition of the word heroism is choosing the right path despite great danger and adversity, then Betty and Mahtob are heroes. They were prisoners, and what prisoner who longs for his or her freedom would not act in a similar manner to them in order to attain it? To those who denounce this book as racist, I would have to disagree, for how else would Betty and Mahtob have gained their freedom if it hadn't been for the actions of several courageous Iranians? They, and a host of their fellow countrmen, are, I feel, depicted very positively in this story, as they should be. "Not Without My Daughter" weaves a rich tapestry of descriptive detail of life in a third world country which most Westerners will never be able to experience firsthand. I felt as though I was at school with Mahtob and going to the market with Betty as she struggled to obtain the little amenities which we Westerners take for granted. That is where the success of Betty's storytelling lies - with her full and exacting accounts of daily life in Iran. But most of all, "Not Without My Daughter" is a moving account of the power of maternal love, and what a mother will do if that love is threatened.