From Booklist
Fitzgerald's unique take on the increasingly popular immigrant saga juxtaposes an introspective look into the repressive lifestyle experienced by Tamila Soroush, 27, in Iran with the nearly unreal freedom she finds while in Tucson on a three-month visa. Sent by her parents in the hope that she can "wake up her luck" and stay in America like her older sister, Tami has three months to find a husband and avoid returning to Iran. One of the Iranian suitors her sister and brother-in-law have lined up turns out to be obsessive-compulsive; the second is a gay control freak. Beyond these awkward matchmaking scenes, Tami forges her own strong friendships with the students in her ESL class, including Nadia, a Russian refugee abused by her bigoted husband, and the outrageously provocative Eva, who introduces Tami to country line dancing. Tami also captures the heart of Ike, a Starbucks server who encourages her pursuit of photography and sends her flowers, despite her sister's objections.

04.11.2011:
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This author has a genuine voice that helps her characters be felt and understood. It takes a real talent for an author to allow her characters to be deep and fully formed. The romance was an unexpected and fun twist. The details on the lifestyle and thinking of an Iranian woman was very enlightening to me. It makes us as women really look at all the freedoms we have and how easy it is to take it all for granted.

Wellabbok that was in your wishlist and I had an aveliable copy, it's on the way to you enjoy.

The book has arrived safely in Austin - thank you ababaigalit :)
Iran and especially its long history as Persia has fascinated me for quite a while (just like other bits of old, Arab cultures... like the Moors and their cultures in Spain, Ibn Battutah etc). So Iran meets America on Tami's journey - how could it not sound interesting?
This will be definitely on my soon-to-be-read TBR pile, as I've got just a few ideas who could want to read it after me (and I'll see them later this spring).

A book that needed to be written, no doubt. Don't get everything granted - the every day small things are that small when compared to the every day things of some other place. Like Tami liked her small daily stops at Starbucks on the way back home; just a small moment of joy of the daily life that she couldn't have enjoyed back home (in her home, men and women don't go to have coffee together). The book follows mostly the first 30 days of Tami's trip to US, where it's quite a bit of the honeymoon stage with the country, yet there are so many small things that are small shocks - and big joys - for her, mostly in the small things aren't that easy to see any more when you've been in the country too long.
But there were a few things that didn't seem quite right in the book. First, Tami arrives with a 90 days visitor visa with a one-way ticket. That doesn't happen, as even the people from the visa waiver countries are not allowed to enter the US without the return ticket, and that wasn't differently when the book was written six years ago. Second, one of the girls she meets in her English courses is from Czechoslovakia. But that country has ceased to exist in 1993. Anyone who's been around where Czechoslovakia used to be would either have been Czech or Slovak since then. If her friend did leave Czechoslovakia, that would have happened before 1993, so what would she still have been doing in the beginners' class of English, nearly 20 years later? No, she seems to be a recent arrival, so she should have been Czech or Slovak. Just like another girl from the same class didn't identify herself as East-German (which some people still do, but mostly if it helps to place their home town in the map of the former Germanies), and just like Nadia, the pregnant mail order bride from Russia is Russian, not from the Soviet Union. At least those characters were placed to be from the countries that are still on the map. Two other small things that somehow annoyed me were how hijab was always written as hejab, and how one of the girl's accent wasn't present until only late in the book, when the poor Polish girl's accent got progressively worse and worse.
Tami is sometimes incredibly naïve, but the characters in the book are enjoyable, and there are so many big dreams in it everywhere. Overall feels like having met a bunch of nice people and having spent some time with them having a nice coffee - I'll check with some BC friends who I know are interested in other cultures to see if they might like to read this next.

Safe journey little book - I hope you'll make many new friends on your travels!

"Don't ever apologize to an author for buying something in paperback, or taking it out from a library (that's what they're there for. Use your library). Don't apologize to this author for buying books second hand, or getting them from bookcrossing or borrowing a friend's copy. What's important to me is that people read the books and enjoy them, and that, at some point in there, the book was bought by someone. And that people who like things, tell other people. The most important thing is that people read... "
— Neil Gaiman

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Thank you very much for this interesting book, Aetm!
I think I'll find new readers for this book after reading it myself.

It did not take me long to read this book. I really enjoyed reading it even if some details were more or less annoying.
The love story is great because it is surrounded by a lot of cultural description. I am afraid that the fate of women in Iran was truthfully told and for that reason annoying. It makes me really angry to read things like that. I understand that everything in the USA is wonderful for somebody coming from Iran or any Islam country. On the other hand she sees only white people in quite a good surroundings. Other kind of surroundings might be depressing.
As for an American writer to be able mention so many European nationalities in her book - it is well done even if she gets them mostly only almost correct.

I think I'll RABCK this to a friend with greetings from the Helsinki region Bookcrossers.

The book is in the envelope to be posted tomorrow to a fellow Bookcrosser.
Happy reading!

Greetings from Arabia Street Festival from Helsinki!
Terveisiä Arabian Katufestivaaleilta Pääkaupunkiseudun Bookcrossereilta!

This is my # 42 in
"KEEP THEM MOVING 2012" Challenge arranged by Booklady331.

Thank you sooo much, this book looks really lovely!

Lovely story, maybe not very believable after all, but perfect for a summer day!

Sending forward as a birthday surprise!

Indeed a surprise and as you reccomend I'll read it during summer (I hope so)! Thanks for sending it to me!:)

Quite a fast reading with many cultural details.
The book was left at the cafeteria.

Found and read, ready to be released again! I found it rather superficial. It had something in it but it was more like a simple american romantic movie with all the cliches one can find in it . Soon, it'll be on the road again in search of another reader .