The Good Daughter, (Paperback)

from bhowell

This book took some time to arrive but I am glad it did. I found the first part of the book difficult to read because of the sickening abuse of children, in particular, the author's mother. A forced marriage of a 13 year old child to a sadistic monster takes place while relatives dance and sing, ...

from SeriousGrace

There is a third party detachment to the way Darznik tells her mother's story. It's cool and aloof, without personal reaction or reflection. The Good Daughter reads like a novel because Darznik does not offer us any emotion. She includes so many fly-on-the-wall details about her mother's first ma...

from lansum

If you liked this book, I'd recommend Across Many Mountains: A Tibetan Family's Epic Journey from Oppression to Freedom, by Yangzom Brauen. Both are well-written narratives about generations of courageous women escaping from oppression and, sometimes, abuse. They have to make adjustments to their...

from Cariola

Jasmin Darznik's The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother's Secret Life reminded me of one of my own family stories. Although my great-grandmother came from a country that treated women much better than Iran (Ireland), she, too, had secrets that the social standards at the time (the 1880s) forced...

from reluctantm

A quick read. Passable as an autobiography but there are times when the narrative doesn't flow particularly well and it starts to feel a lot like "and then this happened and then this happened and then this happened". As the narrator is retelling a story told to her for the majority of the book, ...