Not Without My Daughter: Amazon.ca: Betty Mahmoody, William Hoffer: Books

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From Library Journal

Betty Lover met the perfect "dark stranger" in a Michigan hospital. Her Iranian therapist, Dr. Sayyed Bozorg Mahmoody, became her husband and the father of their daughter, Mahtob. Despite the vicissitudes of the Iran-U.S. hostage crisis, Betty and he flourished until their summer "vacation" in Iran in 1984. The next year and a half were a nightmare. Betty and Mahtob, held hostage by Mahmoody and his family, were subjected to Islamic fundamentalism, Persian nationalistic fanaticism, and a life of squalor. This compelling tale of their terror and escape from Iran is recommended for most libraries. Literary Guild alternate. David P. Snider, Casa Grande P.L., Ariz .
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Spellbinding!"--Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Readers will cheer...good adventure with a happy ending."--Washington Post Book World

"Intense...compelling reading."--Detroit Free Press

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First Sentence
My daughter dozed in her seat next to the window of a British Airways jetliner, her red-brown curls encircling her face, tumbling haphazardly below her shoulders. Read the first page

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Customer Reviews

147 Reviews

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3.5 out of 5 stars (147 customer reviews)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely disgusted. Shame on u Mrs. Mahmoody!!!, Feb 18 2003

By

pegah - See all my reviews

This review is from: Not Without My Daughter (Mass Market Paperback)

As an Iranian, I found her generalization of an entire society, her derogatory fictious portray of the Iranian people and her extreme dramatization of her story ( in oder to sell her book)deeply insulting. I was sickened to my heart from the ignorant& hateful sterotypes so firmly expressed by this book and the movie as to who we Muslim Iranians are! We are not perfect and embody a great deal of imperfections but most of us are not filthy and uphold cleansiness to the highest degree , we are not primitives, we don't eat with our fingers while sitting on the floor, we don't marry our cousins, we don't slaughter animals, walk around in a pool of blood, we don't cover our hair or wear Chador or Mantue ( which most women in Iran have to wear not by choice but by law inoder to survive), have dirty homes and bathrooms with no furniture and behave like complete uneducated savages. We are modern educated human beings ,who like all, are suffused with great ambitions and dreams of a happy life. I appolegize 4 sounding arrogant but we are also known for our family values, hard work, emphasis on education and success, hospitality and our delicious food. Mrs. Mahmoody has every right to express her feelings and write the script to her life as she desires but she has no right to degrade a whole culture with her fabrications, propaganda and lies. What I find the most intriguing is how this woman who abhors and dispises all that her husband emblems puplished a book with his last name still being hers!!!! I profusely thank all my fellow Americans for not buying in to her lies. Thank u.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Pure Garbage and Propaganda, Nov 26 2002

By

C. Garcia "ackoocheemoya" (Henderson, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Not Without My Daughter (Mass Market Paperback)

I'm not Iranian, but how a book this racist and packed with lies ever became a movie astounds me. The book could have easily been shortened by at least two hundred pages had Betty Mahmoody stuck to telling her story, but she spends half of the book describing with disgust how filthy and primitive Iranians are. Her poor half Iranian daughter Mahtob must have quite a self-esteem problem if Betty Mahmoody feeds her this kind of hateful rhetoric at home.

Considering the author's intense xenophobia, I wonder how much of the story really is true and how much is just the fabrication of an ignorant bigot.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Revenge and Lies, Oct 30 2002

By

jaron skenandore (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Not Without My Daughter (Mass Market Paperback)

I am not Iranian and am not married to an Iranian. However, I have done some research on Betty Mahmoodi and feel she greatly dramatized and told untruths about her stay in Iran and about her husband, Dr. Mahmoodi. If Betty had played herself in the movie, you would see she is a large woman, not petite like Sally Fields. In contrast, her husband is a small slim man. I doubt very much that he hit her, knocked her down, and beat her. She could eat him for breakfast. Nor does the fact that she had been previously married and had children, then divorced ever touched upon. By the way, she did not keep the children of her first marriage. Also, she took ten suitcases of clothes with her when she traveled to Iran. I believe she definitely knew that they would be staying for a while. The home she lived in while Iran was very nice and Iranian people are extremely clean. She apparently decided she didn't want to stay there and raised a ruckus. Her husband, wanted to keep his only child--can you blame him? According to International Law, she is the transgressor, not her husband.
The book and the movie were very moving, so much so that I decided to find out more. I was totally disillusioned. The book should have clearly been marked "fiction" or "fairy tale."

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Page Turner
I have to say that this story was the most compelling and effective read i have ever experienced. At any spare moment i had i spent reading this book. Read more

Published on Jan 1 2007 by Hannah 'Cultural book Worm'

5.0 out of 5 stars wow
What an amazing book! I couldn't put it down. I just felt I had to read until they were safe.

Published on Dec 24 2006 by D. Harding