I had quite a lot of expectations from If You Could be Mine by Sara Farizan. The topic - gay love in the Islamic Republic of Iran - is interesting beyond the literary approaches. The book was the acclaimed debut of the Iranian author living in America. I don´t know directly how does it feel to be a gay person in Iran, but being gay is considered an ´illness´ and gender change is an official policy, which make the Islamic Republic the second in the world after Thailand for such interventions.
The characters in the book, Nasrin and Sahar are in love since they were little children, but the social and political circumstances were against a love together. Nasrin, a spoiled girl from a rich family, will be married while Sahar is considering a gender change operation. The dynamics between the two are relatively simple and I was expecting more complexity given the religious and political context. Nasrin is manipulating Sahar who is introduced further to the gay world of Tehran by her gay cousin Ali. At a certain point, when Ali is offering her to move together to Turkey, Sahar has a patriotic outburst, but completely out of the blue and without any further explanations or demonstrative behaviors in this respect. Sahar, which is presented as the intellectual, reasonable character of the book is sheepish and is lacking any complexity - either emotional or intellectual. She is just following blindly Nasrin, no matter how much she is used by her.
Personally I was curious to find out more about the young life in Tehran besides the nose jobs, lavish parties and secret outlet stores (the kind of information easily available from the Rich Kids of Tehran Instagram account anyway). There may be for sure better books written on this topic around the libraries.
Rating: 2.5 stars
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