I’d probably only recommend this book to people who are interested in Iran, but for people who are it’s a unique read, if a bit sensationalized.

So many of the accounts of life in Iran that are popular in the west are centered around the lives of the privileged or the exiled. When I went to Iran, I realized that these accounts don’t come close to giving a full picture of what the country is like, and I am grateful to Navai for going to such lengths to showcase an impressively diverse sample of Tehranis.

Her true achievement however is not the diversity she shows, but rather the unity. I loved how all the characters, despite their ideological and socio-economic differences, were in some ways united: physically by a road and symbolically by their lies and their love of their city despite its many flaws.