Two Short Book Reviews: Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card and Things That Happened Before the Earhquake

Last year and a half I was in a serious reviewing slump.
I read so many books with an intention to review them, but the more I postponed writing them, the less will to actually do write them I had.
Since I am obligated to review the books I requested, I decided to write short book reviews to tell you what I thought about them, and also to fullfil my duty.

Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card by Sara Saedi

Americanized is a non fiction piece of work, written by Sara Saedi, about her life and culture.
She is from Iran and when she was little, her family moved out to USA, but they did not have green cards. We follow Sara and her family through the journey to become USA legal citizens and their fear of being transported back to Iran.

This book is so educational. We learn a lot about Iran and Persian people and their culture.
Also, so many history facts were mentioned here and I can not tell you how grateful I am for reading this book.

In my country, we don’t learn anything about Iran in schools, and while reading, I have realized just how little (or non) I actually knew about anything that Iran people went through.
I was even shocked to learn some things and how life in Iran was before.

I think reading this book is really important to educate yourself. Even if you don’t feel like Iran or this kind of books interest you, it will help you understand their culture and where they come from, plus it will educate you about their history.

Things That Happened Before the Eartquake by Chiara Barzini

I remember loving this book while reading, although it did make me uncomfortable at times.
It is a piece of fiction based on true events.
I recall I loved the pop culture references that were present through the whole book, and how silly the story was at times.
I have also found my notes from when I was reading it, so I am bringing them to you right now:

First of all: although the main character of this novel is a teenager (16 to 17 through the period that the story covers) this is not a ya book.
I would classify it as general fiction set in 90’s.

The earthquake the title is references is the one that happened in 1994 in L.A.

This book has only 320 pages but it reads slowly. The reason – I blame the writing style that is full of tells and has so little shows, and even less conversations.

While reading I felt uncomfortable more then few times:
1. The way the main character Eugenia lost her virginity made me feel nervous because, in my opinion, she was sexually assaulted, even though she didn’t want to admit it to herself (WARNING: That scene can be triggering)
2. Eugenia’s prayers to Holy Mary where she talked about sex
3. Scenes with strong animal abuse were the worst to read about (but they had their meaning in this story).

Overall, a good, solid coming of age story that talks about finding a safe place and ourselves along the way, set 1990s when human life (in my humble opinion) was at it’s best.