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Summary: My New Favorite Travel Writer
Review: I loved this book. It was a delight and a privilege to experience Iran through Allison Wearing's eyes and ears, through her warm heart and beautiful mind. She limits herself to writing only what amuses, entertains, edifies, enlightens her readers, and never never bores--sharing her frustrations, hilarity, surprises, confusion, fear, joy, fatigue, admiration.... Iran's people treat her well and win her affection and respect, and she in turn treats them with the utmost respect and openness; yet she clearly conveys the difficulties and drawbacks of daily life there. She wears Hejab for five months (the black coverings of Muslim women) and sympathetically investigates and illuminates the lives of Iranian women. Wearing's writing style is simply the best--present, funny, thoughtful, gentle, informed, with stories and characters that are irresistable. I appreciate her political and cultural sensitivity, and am very grateful that she took me along on her journey..... I plan to recommend this book to my book club!
Rating: 
Summary: Bad title, good book
Review: I was pleasantly surprised by Alison Wearing and "Honeymoon in Purdah". The title leads the reader to expect another "Western woman marries Islamic man & faces culture shock" book, but in reality the subtitle is much more apt: "An Iranian Journey".Ms. Wearing visited Iran in the mid-90's as a tourist, not a newly married wife of an Islamic man. Although immediately plunged into the restrictiveness of fundamentalist Islamic culture through the necessity of "hejab" (veiling), Ms. Wearing remained open to the people she met & the spontaneity of 3rd World travel. Her joie de vive shines through every encounter. As I read this book, I kept turning to my partner saying, "Wow, listen to this! These people are so nice!!" Everywhere Wearing goes, people she meets go out of their way to make her comfortable, show her their favorite sites, take her into their homes for meals, & drive her wherever she wants. Time & again a chance meeting leads to someone abandoning their plans for the day & taking Alison Wearing under their wing. Even while waiting at a train station in 110 degree heat, broiling under her bourka, tired & angry, a stranger suddenly appears & hands her a tray of food! Personally, I was ready to jump on the next plane to Iran! So, don't pick up "Honeymoon in Purdah" if you're looking for more anti-Muslim propaganda. If you're in the mood to be surprised, delighted & entertained, this is the book for you!
Rating:
Summary: Bad title, good book
Review: I was pleasantly surprised by Alison Wearing and "Honeymoon in Purdah". The title leads the reader to expect another "Western woman marries Islamic man & faces culture shock" book, but in reality the subtitle is much more apt: "An Iranian Journey". Ms. Wearing visited Iran in the mid-90's as a tourist, not a newly married wife of an Islamic man. Although immediately plunged into the restrictiveness of fundamentalist Islamic culture through the necessity of "hejab" (veiling), Ms. Wearing remained open to the people she met & the spontaneity of 3rd World travel. Her joie de vive shines through every encounter. As I read this book, I kept turning to my partner saying, "Wow, listen to this! These people are so nice!!" Everywhere Wearing goes, people she meets go out of their way to make her comfortable, show her their favorite sites, take her into their homes for meals, & drive her wherever she wants. Time & again a chance meeting leads to someone abandoning their plans for the day & taking Alison Wearing under their wing. Even while waiting at a train station in 110 degree heat, broiling under her bourka, tired & angry, a stranger suddenly appears & hands her a tray of food! Personally, I was ready to jump on the next plane to Iran! So, don't pick up "Honeymoon in Purdah" if you're looking for more anti-Muslim propaganda. If you're in the mood to be surprised, delighted & entertained, this is the book for you!
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Summary: This is an wonderful book!
Review: If you enjoy travel memoirs, you'll enjoy this book. A warm and perceptive portrait of a country and people many of us know little about outside of negative political images. You'll feel as though you, too, have met the many remarkable, resiliant, and incredibly welcoming people she meets along the way. As a woman I also found interesting the status of Iranian women and how they cope with their restrictive clothing and roles - but this book is not just for women!
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Summary: May I suggest...
Review: If you enjoyed Honeymoon in Purdah, may I suggest Guests of the Sheik by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, also available here at Amazon. While this book is an interesting, entertaining travelogue, Guests of the Sheik remains an even more interesting historically and anthropologically astute observation of Arabic culture in a personal journalistic style. Guests of the Sheik follows Mrs. Fernea on her ACTUAL honeymoon with her husband to the small town of El Nahra in southeastern Iraq in the 60's, where they spend 2 years as anthropologists, living with and studying these wonderful people. It's an excellent narrative of the secretive culture of women in Arab societies. Fernea, in purdah the entire time, becomes part of the womens' community, facing social pitfalls, unfamiliar customs, and the various dangers inherent in a foreign society and in the end forms a close, longlasting bond with some of the women of El Nahra.
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Summary: Way different from a textbook
Review: If you want to read something a little lighter than most Iranian documents then read this! The author made her entire Honeymoon (not really) trip to Iran colorful and distinct. The people that she met were distinct and full of hospitality. This book gives the reader a much lighter version of Iran than anything else that I have read. I especially liked the way that she simplified many traditions and customs, making the text both informative and easy to read.
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Summary: Iran from inside a chador
Review: Iran is such a closed society that any glimpse inside it is especially fascintating. Alison Wearing has done a great service by allowing us to meet the real people of Iran, whose kindess, hospitality, craziness, and so forth show them to be as human as one would suspect. Especially interesting are individual Iranians' feelings, pro and con, about the Islamic revolution, and the author's experience of their culture and observations about it: After months of wearing the restrictive and horribly uncomfortable clothing required of Iranian women, she finds she is not immediately ready to remove it after leaving. The book is also enourmously entertaining. Includes one of the funniest ping-pong matches ever.
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Summary: Excellent and good written book
Review: It is an excellent travel book which sums up the encounters Alison had on her journey. She does not stay anywhere for a long time and the relationship with her co-traveler is not explored in depth. Thus the result is a sequence of encounters, in each chapter one. Striking is the clothing she had to wear, as this was a considerable burden. The most impressive is how kind and gentle Iranians are and how much most long for a better life.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting combination of truths and misrepresentations
Review: Let me start by saying that my father is Iranian, and that I have visited Iran several times. I believe that this book captures a lot of the spirit of Iranians. I recognized patterns of behavior in the people described by the author from my own experiences with the Iranian half of my family both in Iran and here in America. I found several misrepresentations in the stories, though. Taking a three day bus trip from Turkey is one way to enter Iran, but the author never mentions that you can get a flight to Tehran from many European cities that only takes a few hours. She makes the entire country seem almost impossible to access. She completely glossed over her time in Tehran, where life is often drastically different than in the smaller cities she visited. Her references to people's lack of furniture made them seem poor, when in fact, it is part of the culture to eat and sleep on the floor. I have two female cousins in Tehran who are doctors, but the average reader would probably think that such a career choice was impossible for Iranian women if this was the only book they read about the country. Overall, this was an interesting read, but I don't recommend it as a comprehensive guide to Iran. Read it if you already know some facts about Iran and want to get a feel for the people.
Rating:
Summary: A Journey into the Iranian People
Review: Ms Wearing takes you into the heart and souls of people in Iran without ever leaving your home. She has such a beautiful way of describing the people and their stories that she met during her journey through the country. Her sense of humor in the situations she gets herself into makes you laugh out loud. I hope to hear more traveling stories from Alison Wearing in the years to come.
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