The Lion Women of Tehran was an incredibly emotional read for me. I finished it teary-eyed, and there were several moments throughout the novel that genuinely moved me. At times, I almost forgot I was reading about fictional characters because of how vividly the story is woven into the real history of Iran from the 1950s through the 1980s.

What captivated me most was the relationship between Ellie and Homa. Their friendship is the heart of the novel, spanning years of political upheaval, personal growth, separation, and reunion. It feels authentic in all its complexity. Through them, the novel explores joy, loyalty, jealousy, grief, love and betrayal in ways that feel deeply human. I found myself connecting with both women, even when I didn't always agree with their choices. One of the book's greatest strengths is its willingness to let its characters be imperfect without losing empathy for them.

The historical setting is equally compelling. Rather than feeling like a backdrop, Iran's changing political landscape becomes an active force in the characters' lives, shaping their opportunities, relationships, and futures. I learned a great deal about Iranian history and culture while reading, but never in a way that felt like a history lesson. Instead, these events are experienced through the lives of people you come to care about.

Beyond its historical elements, the novel explores themes of feminism, motherhood, autonomy, sacrifice, and resilience. I particularly appreciated how it portrays different kinds of strength and different ways of being a woman. There is no single path to fulfilment, activism, or courage, and the book allows its characters the space to navigate those questions for themselves.

Beautiful, devastating, hopeful, and heartbreaking, The Lion Women of Tehran is ultimately a story about friendship, about the choices that shape our lives, and about the enduring bonds that connect us to one another.

With so much respect to V.E. Schwab and Cat Clarke, it’s bluntly obvious thriller/mystery is not their usual genre to write in. It felt like their focus when writing this book was on the commentary around the publishing industry and its hardships, which I do think was important here, but the mystery aspect was left to the side when this was supposed to be, in fact, a mystery book.

The premise is interesting and the book has a nice introduction that makes you want to feel invested in the mystery and who’s going to come out victorious in the end, but so much happens in the meantime that deviates from what was the initial plot and it just gets messy. The plot is not cohesive, it has no structure and it doesn’t feel like it has a purpose. There were a lot of moments that I would hope something would happen and when it did… it brought nothing to the story. Sure, a lot of it gets explained at the end, but it doesn’t have any actual impact or reason in the moment.

The characters were such a waste and so much more could’ve been done with them. We learn so much about them, with some having such interesting backgrounds and important reasons to want to win this competition, but again none of it is actually impactful. So much time is wasted on insignificant details, so many chapters in povs of useless (and infuriating) characters, not to mention the amount of plot points that I thought were going to come up later in the book and change the trajectory of the plot but that were just forgotten and never picked up again.

All of this for an ending that isn’t even satisfactory but instead predictable and dull.