I am Persian and I found this book to be very informative, although it's not an easy read. It could use a considerable amount of editing and I found a lot of the things she said to be somewhat inaccurate. Other times it's as if it goes on rambling. She mentions over and over again how little farsi she knows and how the Iranians know even less english, so I found that while writing her conversations, she probably had to improvise a lot and I wonder if she really understood what people were trying to tell her. Overall, it's not a bad book. I did learn some more stuff about my own culture, but I think her frame of mind is still very "American"- you know what I mean. She wrote several times about how frustrated and irritated she would get with some of the culture clashes there, but if you are going to do something like this, you just have to accept things the way they are- thus not becoming frustrated or irritated. I was surprised that she travelled alone for parts of it. I'm Iranian, and even I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that.
I would recommend Terrence Ward's Searching for Hassan before this.