Aria is a moving portrait of an orphaned girl and her city, of rich and poor, love and abuse, corruption and revolution.

Nazanine Hozar takes us through Aria's life, from abandonment and abuse, to a wealthy home and privileged education, marriage and the collapse of society as she knew it. Even as scars are inflicted, our protagonist Aria never loses hope and offers more love than we sometimes feel the people around her deserve. Her story plays out on a national level as well, over years leading up to the most dramatic time in Iran's history and culminating in the Islamic Revolution.

Hozar's prose is descriptive and the story emotional. I could see the streets of Tehran and felt overwhelming love for some characters and dislike for others.

At times the storytelling felt uneven, with certain events unfolding over many chapters while others occurred in rapid succession. Perhaps that's more reflective of life, however, and contributed to making this book feel brutally, beautifully real.

Thanks to Knopf DoubleDay and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy!

Available August 25 2020

Waltzing in and out of present and past day Iran, Nazanine Hozar's "Aria" paints a mesmerizing portrait of what it means to claim womanhood for both a country and for the main protagonist. With a deft hand, Hozar's "Aria" is still piecing together her complicated family narrative amid a shifting political landscape. What follows is a soft, delicate and meandering narrative that truly does honesty to its protagonist's age and place in history. I enjoyed the author's slowed pace and gentle narrative style, even when describing quite brutal events.

This book creates powerful images on reader’s mind despite underdeveloped character arcs and irregular pace. I really enjoyed some parts, but in general, had hard time making progress.
It’s a coming of age story, and the title character, Aria has a difficult life in many ways, starting from her birth. The story is full of tragic characters who lived (or died/disappeared) in tumultuous times of Iran, between 1953 and 1980. We follow Aria and her close friends growing up in an atmosphere of poverty, uncertainty, social unrest, radicalism, and regime changes.
Although the storyline is interesting, I found the narrative uneven and patchy.

4 stars

“I used to sign arias. Know what they are? Little tales, cries in the night. If you sing an aria, the world will know all about you. It will know your dreams and secrets. Your pains and your loves.”

The title character of this novel comes of age in Tehran during the build-up to the Iranian Revolution. Abandoned in the South-City as an infant, Aria’s childhood is defined by abuse and neglect. She eventually finds a safer home and is sent to a French-language school, where she meets friends from the North-City and works toward an education. This book spans from her birth in 1953 until her mid-twenties at the height of the revolution.

While Aria’s story moves the timeline along, she is not the focal point of the novel. This book is really an examination of class, race, and gender in pre-revolutionary Iran. Various characters disappear and reappear throughout the novel multiple times, demonstrating the experience of different groups within Iranian society in this time period.

“Sometimes, on good days, the beauty was enough to mute the poverty surrounding them.”

This is not a book with a dramatic, fast-paced plot. It is a quieter book, with the plot resting heavily on the development of the characters and their relationships with one another. I personally loved this book, but it is not for everyone, for this exact reason. If you prefer books that are fast-paced, this is probably not the book for you!

Some reviewers have claimed that this book is highly inaccurate, and have gone so far as to question the validity of Hozar’s “own-voices” credential, as she moved to Canada from Iran at the age of seven. However, the inaccuracies pointed out in reviews were mostly geographical or temporal. In my opinion, this does not diminish the quality of the book.

Hozar’s intention with this novel was not to provide a history lesson worthy of the History Channel, but rather to spark interest and to provide knowledge about the complexities of Iranian society. While the layout of Tehran may not have been 100% accurate in the novel, it did teach me quite a lot about the diversity of Iran. This book also pushed me to do further research into the Iranian Revolution. For this reason, I would call it a success.

What Hozar does best in this novel are the characters. They are all complex human beings, whose motivations and actions change as time progresses. Hozar humanizes various slices of Iranian society and people on different sides of the Revolution. I recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about Iranian history and those who love quiet books that move through character study.

“I think life is meant to turn out the opposite of what we want. Otherwise we’d never learn anything.”

Thank you to Netgalley and Pantheon Books for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.

*Many thanks to Nazazine Hozar, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
The story of a baby girl with a boy's name, Aria, unwanted and left to perish after her birth, was interesting, however, the fact that I know almost next to nothing about Iran as it was in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, until the Revolution, stopped me from enjoying the plot as much as I wanted. I spent a lot of time googling the names and trying to understand the religious complications in Iran at that time, and it was not something that allowed me to go with the flow with this book. On the other hand, the social and historical background sounded intriguing despite the inability to comprehend all niceties. I think a reader with some knowledge of the place and times will find this novel much more compelling.
I cannot say I found characters likeable, except for Bakhtiar who finds the baby and decides to bring her up. Aria herself is a strange girl but perhaps it is all due to being unloved in her childhood and the suffering that fell upon her.

Set mainly during the reign of the Shah, this book takes readers to a place and time that many outside of the Middle East may know little about. This is the story of Aria, the girl with a boy’s name, from her unfortunate birth through her fortunate life. As the story unfolds we see how Aria goes from an unwanted baby to a smart and strong woman. Prejudices are introduced but not fully explored, that would probably take several other books. I highly recommend this book to readers who enjoy historical fiction or want to read more books that explore cultures not normally represented in most popular books.

I have seen some reviews stating that the research that went into this book was subpar, however, I am not an expert in Iranian history and cannot say if the details are correct or inaccurate. Something that I am quite clear on is exactly how bored out of my ever loving mind I was while reading it. I kept having to reread paragraphs because I would zone out or quite literally fall asleep and forget where I was. The characters and their actions were unbelievable and questionable at times. There was a lack of character development and the overall character arcs didn't feel like they came into complete fruition. Also, did I mention it was boring? When a book is 448 pages, boring is not your friend.

This one just sadly didn't work for me. I found myself pretty bored while reading it and struggled to connect to the plot, characters and the writing style.

I really enjoyed this book. It is about a young girl living in Iran during the Shah's reign. Aria tells her story amidst the political strife of her country, but only through the eyes of the non-political children.
I loved the characters. They were very realistic. The story flowed beautifully. I would recommend this book to anyone.

This book is an exquisite mix of Iranian history prior, during and a bit after the revolution, and an influx of characters that lived during that time. A story of lives intertwined but not necessarily known that they are. You can’t help but fall deep into the character of Aria. A harsh beginning of life, but the prospect of finally peace in her latter days.

1953. Behrouz Bakhtiar is a truck driver in the army. One night as he is making his way through the alleyways, he finds a baby. He takes her home and names her Aria. Why? He remembers his friend’s words that time is not on his side. At nineteen, he married Zahra, who was thirty-six. She never was married before and already had a son Ahmad, age 19 – rough character, constantly in and out of jail. Zahra seems to be as rough as her son.

1958. Zahra doesn’t like the girl. She is abusive toward her when her husband is not home.

The story contains four parts titled under different character name. Since each part is lengthy, it involves many characters. It’s not only her story. And that’s when it gets confusing what this is about or what is it propelled by. It seems to be character driven, but at times it seems that it might be plot driven.

In regards to Aria, there are some moments, the way things happen that they don’t make much sense or are not believable. Also, for a five year old, she sounds much older. I understand that due to her abusive step-mother maybe she needed to mature much faster. But still at times it just doesn’t sound believable and I didn’t feel any connection with her. She didn’t evoke any sympathy. She seems to be a thread in this story, connecting different characters. But after all I wasn’t connected with any of them.

What initially pulled me into this story was the character of Behrouz. But then it becomes slow character development. I really disliked Zahra. She is a mean person. Instead of being pulled into the story, I felt being pushed away from it by her character.

This is a when if historical fiction. Given what I have read from #ownvoices experts, this seems to lean a bit more heavily on fiction than history. That aside, the characters could benefit from more nuanced development. Still, there is a story told here that is interesting and had some epic elements that will please some readers.

When reading the description of "Aria," you're told that you'll be following the life of an Iranian child named Aria as she grows up during the White Revolution and the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Due to the description, you think the book's title is a reference to the girl. Thus, when you start the book, it takes a while for you to realize that the title actually refers to the opera song type. The main elements of an aria are:
A single voice (solo)
A full accompaniment
Repetition, melisma, and sequences
Hozar places Aria as the solo, but she is most definitely not alone as a whole cast of characters, events, and locations accompany her. In the end, Hozar shows through her novel that history itself is the accompaniment to each living being's solo, and, while that sounds beautiful, there is always element 3 to puncture our egos. Everything under the sun is just a aria full of cyclical series of cause and effect. And, time slips away much more quickly than we realize until it is much too late.

Aria follows the life of a young Iranian girl living in Tehran, starting in the 50s and finishing in the 80s. The story begins with Aria’s birth, and shortly thereafter her abandonment by her mother. Although Aria was placed in an alley to die, surrounded by garbage, she is found and rescued by a good-hearted man married to a much older, abusive woman. The cultural immersion you experience from reading this novel is exquisite and the characters are memorable. I found myself dreaming of Aria and her mothers as I was reading this book.

The novel is broken up into sections signifying the women in Aria’s life. The novel also explores important cultural, religious, and political shifts in Tehran during those decades. It somewhat reminded me of the moral of the play An Inspector Calls, where each person can touch the life of another and in the end, they are all deeply intertwined.

However, I felt that this book was simultaneously very long but also did not have enough detail in some sections, hence the lower star rating. I feel a bit of editing could do it good because in the end, there is a genuinely important story within its pages but it needs some attention to truly shine. Also, there were scenes that made me physically ill due to vivid descriptions of violence, injury, and abuse.

Although the title implies the book is about the girl Aria, the novel truly is about how Iran and Tehran was shaped over those decades, and how little slights can turn into big differences. Overall, a truly important look at those times and a great read if you are interested in how the Iran of today was shaped by yesterdays.

Thank you to Netgalley for sending me this novel to review

Nazanine Hozar starts the novel very dramatically with the birth of a child, not just any child but a girl child, not very welcome in Iran especially in 1953. Mehri, the mother, presumes that the child is male and refers to the baby as ‘he.’ She is at the house of a friend and her baker husband. There is a passing reference to Mossadegh, the Prime Minister of Iran, whom the baker greatly admires which gives the reader a hint that the novel will have a political slant. As Mehri’s husband sits patiently at the door of the bakery waiting to kill the child and the baker is reluctant to offer her asylum, she leaves their house in the snow and abandons the baby who is later found by an army driver, Behrouz Bakhtiar, who takes the child home and forces Zahra, his wife, to look after her.

The action moves to 1958 and the child has been named Aria, generally a boy’s name signifying “the Iranian race” but Behrouz intends it to represent “little tales, cries in the night.” Aria has three mothers: Zahra, who is very abusive and illtreats her forcing her to sleep on the balcony; Fereshteh, a Zoroastrian who is forced to convert to Islam, and finally, Mehri, her birth mother. All three mothers fall short as Aria herself, reminisces, “of one mother who left her, a mother who beat her, and a mother who loved her but couldn’t say so.”

On one level the novel, is a coming to age story of Aria and her friends, Mitra and Hamlet; once again politics gets enmeshed in her relationship with her friends, Hamlet’s father is a wealthy Armenian businessman with links to the Shah and Mitra’s father is often arrested for his links with the communists and the leftists. The political tensions and economic divisions are all seen through the eyes of the children who later become teenagers.

However, the most important part of the novel is the coming of age of a nation as it covers the period from 1953 to 1979 ending with the arrival of Khomeini from exile. But does anything change for the inhabitants of Iran? They seem to continue to suffer and the SAVAK, cruel secret agents of the Shah, are replaced by the SEPAH, the revolutionary guards.


It is Iran and possibly Tehran which is the central character of the novel. The city is divided into the poorer south side and the wealthy northern enclave. The historical and political background information is skillfully woven into the fabric of the novel. There are references to the deposition of Mossadegh, the nationalization of the oil industry and the seizing of the US embassy in 1979.

The novel, though a bit uneven at times, has garnered much praise especially from Margaret Atwood who classified it as “a Doctor Zhivago of Iran.”

For an author that claims authenticity Hozar has definitely not done her research on Iranian history and Iranian life. Historical and geographical mistakes aside, the story itself resembles a Bollywood movie, which is absolutely fine, but does not make it equivalent to Nobel prize winner Pasternak and his masterpiece "Doctor Zhivago"; most events and relationships are hardly believable and give the story the aura of a fairy tale, thus robbing it of a dramatic arc.