While I usually love stories about groups of female friends, I found this one to be too slow to connect with. There are long passages, especially in the beginning, that are very insular and within each character's mind. While that does help the reader get to know them, I found these sections to drag on for too long. It made it hard for me to connect with each woman and become invested in their story. However, as the book went along, I did find myself more engaged as the lives of each woman became more complicated, and they began to rely on each other more. Compared to the latter half of the novel, the first half just felt very static. It is very beautifully written and felt, I just think the pacing could have been changed for the better.

I’ll Be Strong For You follows Roja, Shabaneh, and Leyla. I loved getting to know these young Iranian women. I adored the themes of friendship and the discussion of immigration. Though I have read a decent amount of contemporary and historical fiction in the Middle East, I haven’t read too much about Iran. I felt like I learned so much through reading I’ll Be Strong For You.
Though I loved the culture and characters, I found the actual plot quite hard to follow. The ending left a lot to be desired and didn’t quite work for me. Overall- a good character driven story.

<i>I'll be strong for you</i> is story, or rather, moments in life of three friends in their mid to late twenties. Written in stream-of-consciousness style, each character explore their lives through their inner monologues and life changing events.

Taking place in modern day Tehran, we understand what has happened through their memories and what is currently taking place in their lives. All three of them have relied on each other in the past to get through the times and ironically have also found themselves sort of alienated in the group as well. At least that's how each character sometimes feel given how their circumstances feel to them.

There is an underlying tone of despair in each of their lives, and the way novel ends, it feels unfinished.

<i>Thank you to Netgalley and Astra Publishing House for providing me with a free copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.</i>

“I’ll Be Strong for You”, by Nasim Marashi, translated from Farsi by Poupeh Missaghi, follows three women in their late twenties, friends since college, in modern day Teheran. All three women (Leyla, Shabaneh, and Roja) are nostalgic about the past and uncertain about the future, and try to set their lives in order while feeling that control is slipping through their fingers.

The book is divided into six chapters, with each friend narrating two chapters each. They cover more or less the same events, naturally through different perspectives, and the timeline also occasionally jumps to the past, to key events that shed light on the women’s present day personalities and dilemmas. The whole novel is written in a stream of consciousness, with the reader being privy to Leyla’s, Shabaneh’s, and Roja’s direct thoughts about what is happening to them, what they fear and long for, as well as what they think about each other and their friendship.

I really enjoyed reading this short novel. I became invested in the lives of the three main characters, and even curious about the recurring side characters that were part of their lives. It was also very interesting to get a glimpse of modern day Teheran. I hope more of Marashi’s works become available in English, as I would definitely like to read more by this author. Thank you to NetGalley and Astra House for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

It’s always good to read a novel from another country and gain insight into another culture but this one just didn’t work for me. It tells of three Iranian University graduates, good friends, in Tehran, struggling with their ambitions and relationships, and trying to decide what their next steps will be. All of them have emotional issues of one sort or the other and the result is an over-wrought melodramatic narrative with many tears and tantrums. The three women are very different one from another but unfortunately they all sound exactly the same – and with frequent jumping about in the timeline and a steam of consciousness style I was frequently at a loss as to who I was reading about. Not that I much cared. They all needed to get a grip, as far as I was concerned. It was, admittedly, interesting to read about young modern Iranian women and their lives – although why such educated middle-class women constantly used the f-word I have no idea; it really jarred on me. So no, not an enjoyable read which a good bit of editing might have improved.

I accidentally missed the archive date of this book, but I was able to borrow it from the library the week that it was published in the US.

I was interested in this novel because I like reading about life in Iran and I'd heard that this was an award-winning debut novel when it came out in Iran.

The translation to English was done really well in my opinion!

This is definitely in the literary fiction genre, as in it is written with a stream of consciousness style that takes a little while to get used to. I had to just accept that I didn't know who some of the characters mentioned were until they were explained further along, through other flashbacks or stories.
It's organized with three chapters in Summer and three chapters in Autumn, each chapter is from one of the three main characters' points of view. And each woman is going through the same day. It's interesting and interweaves their stories well. It's a unique layout to a novel.

You learn about the three women - Leyla, Shabaneh, and Roja - and their friendship, history, and what they want to do with their lives. The book can be depressing and very somber at times, but in the end I still enjoyed it and the characters.
Thank you to Astra Publishing and Netgalley.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for giving me an early copy of this book in exchange for a review.

This books follows three young women; Roja, Shabaneh, and Leyla over a summer and autumn whilst they decide the next steps of their lives.

The novel is set out as three chapters in the summer and three in the autumn, each from one of the women's perspective relaying the same day.

It is written as a stream of consciousness. There are times throughout when the novel takes you out of the moment, and you follow the protagonists thoughts and flashbacks which I thought was really well done.

It shows difficult decisions and life-changing moments, and how even the closest of friends cannot know everything that goes on behind closed doors.

There is heartbreak and sadness, these women have been through a lot.

I will say that I didn't necessary feel the closeness between the characters that was told to us. Almost as though all three women felt like they were the outsider of the group?

This book is on its 40th print having been originally written in Persian around seven years ago.

A story of friendship and overcoming.
Three young women in Tehran, looking for identity and for their way in life. Amid the setbacks and sorrows of life, they support and help each other. A very touching, painful and beautiful book.
Leila married her great love from school. He is fun, friendly to everyone, but he is tired and wants to leave Tehran. In the end, he gets a place to study in Canada, and after insisting a lot on his wife accompanying him, he goes alone. Leila falls into a deep depression, and counts on her friends to help her.
Shabaneh is afraid of the future. She has achieved so many things in her life: she is an engineer and has a good job, but she feels pressured to marry and start a family, which leads her to date a guy who violates her psychologically. At home, things are not going very well either: she has a brother with an intellectual disability who is rejected by her Mother, so she feels responsible for him. How can she get married and leave her brother behind?
Roja is the most determined of all. She urgently wants to leave Tehran, so she studies French hard and gives private lessons to save money. She suffers a lot from the idea of ​​leaving her mother behind, but she knows that this is the price to pay for freedom. She gets a place to study in Toulouse, France, but her visa has been denied.
These three women are all they have, and they help each other as they can. Despite liking the story, I found the chapters to be very long, which made reading a bit slow. But it was a very good reading to reflect a little on the lives of these women.

I couldn't get into the story. I really thought the beginning was promising but I didnt find myself thinking about this book or what happened in it at all and then when I would have free time to read, it just wasn't the one I was reaching for. DNF

Thank you NetGalley for this advanced copy. This was such a melancholy book, and it is not for someone looking for some light reading. The three main characters all have so many problems. The book takes you through three different points of view, alternating between the past and present without any warning, so reader's can piece together the puzzle. Only about 80% into the book does the reader finally see wisdom and advice coming through. I did not appreciate the profanity, and the book would get a "clean" rating without it. Also, there is a serious LACK of ending for this, but I wouldn't read the sequel and to find out the ending to all the melancholy drama. It is an adult novel, but young adults wondering what to do with their lives would benefit from reading.

This debut novel follows three young women as graduates from Iran as they muddle their way through their jobs, relationships and friendships. Although the three perspectives have distinct personalities and aspirations, I found it hard to place the three storylines alongside each other - to the point where each narrative felt like it’s own contained story that we got to revisit throughout the novel.

I found that Leyla’s storyline to be the most compelling, she had decided to stay in Iran to work as a journalist while her husband had moved abroad. This narrative was by far the most reflective as it focused on Leyla’s chaotic mind which was prone to over analysing everything, sometimes to the point of catastrophic thinking as she grapples with feelings of loneliness.

Whereas the other perspectives were more plot focused. This meant that we didn’t get to explore these other characters’ inner thoughts, despite the first person narration.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for providing me with this book.

'I'll Be Strong For You' is about three women in Iran juggling their personal lives, careers and life expectations. I really like books about women' lives and the fact this is set in Iran really sets it apart from other books I've read.

I have put this on my DNF shelf as I don't anticipate I'll be picking it up again for a while. I read the first chapter and struggled to get into the story. The narration is quite repetitive and the book is dialogue heavy ( I don't think there is anything wrong with books that rely on dialogue, it's just not to my personal taste).

I might pick this book up again at a later date, but that won't be at least for a few months.

I have given this a One Star Review only because I did not finish the book.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3826880119

This was a very interesting novel that I actually enjoyed reading very much I’m actually going to re-read it again and I think I missed some of the details the first time around. But I definitely liked it