Interesting look at a character stuck between two cultures
Set in contemporary Portland, this is a story about Darius - a teen who is half Persian and half...not Persion. He speaks geek culture, particularly all things Lord of the Rings and Star Trek, fluently, but he doesn't speak Farsi with the same level of proficiency, despite the fact that his little sister does. He's got depression - that's one of the few things that he got from his father - and he's the target for a lot of the popular kids both inside and outside of school despite the zero tolerance policy for bullying. As with most Persians, he has a love of tea, but his preferences go beyond that of the standard types that people like him mom would ever accept. And now that his grandfather is dying, someone who he's only met through a computer screen up till now, him and his family are flying to Tehran and traveling from there to Yzad where his grandparents live for the very first time.
There are a lot of things that separate me from the character of Darius. I mean, I watched Star Trek: The Next Generation with my dad when I was growing up, but otherwise, I haven't really seen many of the other series, and the intricacies of his knowledge of the Lord of the Rings saga is definitely beyond me. Since his language is peppered with reference to these fandoms, I sometimes felt a disconnect with the character. However, at the same time, I'm hooked enough that I want to pick up the entire book and see what life is like for Darius in Iran. And not only because the culture is an key part of who he is. I'm always interested in learning more about different cultures, especially one that is so very different from the one where I'm from the one depicted. Moreover, I recently read another book set in Tehran, but I suspect that this novel will cover a very different aspect of the culture from that one, in part because the main character is so different (a guy vs. a teen girl) and thus, he has more privileges in Iranian society than the character in the other book I read.
Looking forward to seeing where Darius' experience in Iran for the first time takes him.
There are a lot of things that separate me from the character of Darius. I mean, I watched Star Trek: The Next Generation with my dad when I was growing up, but otherwise, I haven't really seen many of the other series, and the intricacies of his knowledge of the Lord of the Rings saga is definitely beyond me. Since his language is peppered with reference to these fandoms, I sometimes felt a disconnect with the character. However, at the same time, I'm hooked enough that I want to pick up the entire book and see what life is like for Darius in Iran. And not only because the culture is an key part of who he is. I'm always interested in learning more about different cultures, especially one that is so very different from the one where I'm from the one depicted. Moreover, I recently read another book set in Tehran, but I suspect that this novel will cover a very different aspect of the culture from that one, in part because the main character is so different (a guy vs. a teen girl) and thus, he has more privileges in Iranian society than the character in the other book I read.
Looking forward to seeing where Darius' experience in Iran for the first time takes him.