A review by horizonous
City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death, and the Search for Truth in Tehran by Ramita Navai

Did not finish book. Stopped at 30%.
From the beginning it felt like the author took a lot of liberties to interlard the thoughts and feelings of the people she wrote about. To me it read like she interviewed a bunch of people from the same background and merged their stories to give some sort of generalized account of whatever the theme of the chapter was about. That's why I turned to the Sources in the back of the book and I was right:

Chapter One: Dariush
Dariush's story is mostly based on my interviews with an ex-MEK member, who has spoken publicly of his MEK mission to Tehran to kill a former Tehran police chief. I have also used details provided by two other former MEK members living in Tehran and merged them with this man's story. Interviews with these former members also provided the details of the arrival in the country, family background, the MEK handler and the gun-runner. I have changed a few details of Dariush's assassination attempt. [...]

Chapter Two: Somayeh
Somayeh's story is based on that of a woman who wishes to remain anonymous; [...] Conversations between Somayeh and her friends are conversations heard between girls of the same age group and from the same conservative families as Somayeh, or they are conversations recounted by Somayeh. Political conversations between the men were conversations I listened to in her area [...]. I also interviewed several women in their fifties from conservative families for a full picture of Somayeh's mother and friends. [...]

That's just not what I expected and wanted from this book. 
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