She’s seen unhappy Mahtob is with that life already and refuses to subject her daughter to more pain and misery. I wasn’t even sure if I should bother reading this, but then I found a used copy at our monthly book swap and decided to read it after all. You can argue about how negative and stereotyping this book is, how it helped to reinforce generalized preconceptions about the Iranians, how it didn’t help to provide a better and more accurate picture of the Iranian society to the an already-hostile American public, how it was used by a sector of the American public and media who would happily jump on anything like this, how it was used by both sides as a political propaganda tool, etc.

This is Betty’s Mahmoody’s account and its a terrifying account and ordeal for any woman and child to have gone through. I understand she was angry and frustrated and had been through a lot; it probably would have been a better book had she given it some space for perspective. A couple days later, Judy invited Betty to a party where she could talk to Judy's friend Rasheed about finding a way to escape the country. If one of countless Muslim women who live fulfilling lives of achievement wrote a story in which religious Muslims didn't come across as demons, it would be simply discounted as propaganda; there would be no market for it. After years of marriage and a beautiful child together, Betty agrees to travel with her husband to Iran to visit his family.Many of her husband's relatives were actually shocked and scolded him for his treatment of her and their daughter, including his own mother. On my second reading I couldn’t help wondering how damaging a book like this is/was to Iranian society. However, this book was written in retrospect and her bias against Islam is glaring and I kept getting frustrated with some of her depictions in the book. Then he said to me, when I get married and have children, if I find that my wife is not a good mother, I will take the children and go back to turkey. My experience was overwhelmingly positive, with someone who was very respectful and caring and who I never felt forced me or pressured me to do anything or wear anything different from what I wanted to do.

They also faced familial challenges: Moody's sister, Ameh Bozorg, (literally "great aunt"), who was their host, viewed Betty with contempt, simply for being an American and holding to American ideals.Not Without My Daughter is an account of her experiences in 1984-1986, when she left Michigan, to go to Iran with her husband and daughter for what she was promised would be a short visit.