09/09/2026
What I am currently reading
Some friendships survive because they are strong. Others survive because two people are too deeply woven into each otherโs history to ever completely let go.
That is what stayed with me after reading The Lion Women of Tehran. Marjan Kamali has written a story that looks, at first, like a friendship between two girls, but slowly reveals itself as something much larger: a story about class, political upheaval, betrayal, motherhood, guilt, and the strange ways the past refuses to stay buried.
Set against the turbulent history of Iran, the novel follows Ellie and Homa, two girls from very different worlds whose lives become intertwined. Their friendship begins in childhood, when Ellie is struggling with loneliness and Homa enters her life with a boldness and confidence Ellie desperately needs. But history has a way of testing friendships, and as Iran changes around them, so do the girls.
What I found most compelling was the question underneath everything: What do we owe the people who once saved us?
That question becomes increasingly uncomfortable as the story unfolds. Ellie and Homa don't simply grow apart because life happens. Their differences in privilege, ambition, fear, and circumstance begin to matter. And Kamali refuses to make either woman entirely innocent or entirely guilty. That complexity is what makes the story feel human.
The political backdrop is equally powerful. Iran isn't simply scenery here. The country's upheaval shapes the characters' choices, their fears, their families, and ultimately their futures. You feel how political change doesn't remain inside government buildings or history books. It walks into ordinary homes. It changes friendships. It determines who feels safe, who has opportunities, and who has to run.
And then there is the betrayal.
I won't spoil it, but this is where the novel really got under my skin. It forces you to consider how one decision made years ago can continue echoing through an entire life. We often want stories about friendship to give us clear heroes and villains. Kamali gives us something much more difficult: people who love each other, hurt each other, misunderstand each other, and carry those wounds for years.
I also loved the way motherhood enters the story. The women aren't simply defined by the men around them or by the political world they inhabit. They are trying to decide what kind of women they want to become, what they owe their children, and whether protecting someone can sometimes mean making choices they will later regret.
There were moments when I wanted to reach through the pages and tell these women to simply talk to each other. And then I remembered that real life rarely gives us that kind of clarity. Sometimes pride speaks first. Sometimes fear speaks louder. Sometimes we leave things unsaid for so long that silence becomes part of the relationship.
That is where The Lion Women of Tehran really works for me. It isn't simply asking whether Ellie and Homa can remain friends. It is asking whether love can survive guilt, whether forgiveness can exist without forgetting, and whether two people can find their way back to each other after becoming strangers.
This is an emotional, beautifully layered novel about the friendships that shape us and the choices that follow us. It made me think about the people from my own past, the friendships I remember fondly, the ones that ended badly, and the conversations that perhaps should have happened years ago.
And maybe that is the most dangerous thing about a good novel: you think you're reading about someone else's life until you suddenly recognize your own.
I finished this book thinking less about Iran's history and more about my own history with people. And that, to me, is when historical fiction becomes unforgettable.
