Book Review – The Alley of Love and Yellow Jasmines by Shohreh Aghdashloo

First published, 2013

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

I’ve been a fan of Shohreh Aghdashloo for quite a while now. I have loved her work in many different films and TV shows and this memoir spent literally minutes in my TBR pile before I could take it no longer and had to read it.

I was not disappointed. Iran has been in the news for as long as I can remember, although my knowledge of the country, its culture and its people has been something of a mystery to me. This is largely because I always prefer a story told by someone who has lived it over a textbook.

In The Alley of Love and Yellow Jasmines, Shohreh Aghdashloo writes compellingly and with the lightest of touches about family’s life in the days of the Shah, as well as the growing political unease of her young adult life. She writes so beautifully about her first ventures into modelling, acting and romance, as well as her escape from Iran to the freedom and educational opportunities of the United Kingdom, and her subsequent relocation to the United States.

I really loved this book.