Bucket reading list Rooftops of Tehran

       Rooftops of Tehran was on the top of my reading list this summer.  The story is  richly rendered, about courage, sacrifice, and the bonds of friendship and love.  Mahbod Seraji opens the door to the fascinating world of Iran and provides a glimpse into the life and customs of a country on the verge of a revolution.  Its a love story about the lives of two teenagers living in the Iranian revolution and their process of trying to grow up in the era of the Shah.  Seraji brings humor, emotion, and tragedy into the lives of the characters.  He clearly makes us understand the brutality of the dictatorship during the Iranian revolution.  He brings historical context into an appealing bittersweet love story.
       Many people understand Iran, as a hateful country full of war, hatred, and terrorism, this is what the media portrays it as.  Seraji tells another side of Iran through his characters, he chose to tell the story of hope, friendship, love and humor.  He acquaints his readers about Iran, by bringing a clash of the Persian culture and telling the lives of the regular citizens in Iran.  He portrays the picture of innocence in a country that is going through turmoil.
     I was captured by the book from the beginning because of the rich description the author makes in making the characters, it almost feels like Deja vu.  By the end of the book, you know and you can describe the characters personality and their life.  I felt like I was with the characters during their time of woe, and during their time of happiness.  The setting of this book in the beginning is in a psychiatric hospital, you know from that moment that something is happening.  A couple of chapters later the setting changes to the rooftop where Pasha is spending his summer with Zari.  It kind of makes you want to read on until you find out why he was in the psychiatric hospital.  Even in the beginning of the book I was wondering why, and how the character is in the psychiatric hospital.  I think what made me want to read this till the very end was the way the author wrote the book.  He put a glimpse of the climax in the beginning of the book to make the reader wonder what happened to the character so the reader would read on.  As the reader reads on, the reader is putting the pieces together through the clues the author made.  What makes this novel funny is the portrayal of the teachers.  The witty characteristics of the teacher just makes you laugh. This book is heart warming but also heart breaking at times.  Rooftops of Tehran is definitely a must read novel for audiences that have a high expectations for books, it won't disappoint you