I raced through this book to be ready for a book club meeting.

I may have had a different opinion if my read had been less pressured. But I tend to think I would not have completed the book at all.

I share the frustrations others have mentioned: there were too many characters and too many plot lines. It was hard to keep track of everyone. The author tells when she should show.

Also: the characters do not develop. Raphael's wife is shrewish. Raphael's son is evil. Elizabeth is bright but cold. All of these characters start out this way and so remain to the very end, despite the changes in circumstance each experiences.

A final complaint. The shah modernized Iran, surely a good thing. But he was also a brutal dictator who used torture and murder to stifle opposition. The narrator and her characters ignore the politics that engendered their exile.