Bone Worship

By Elizabeth Eslami

A rich and soul-searching novel about an Iranian-American girl whose enigmatic father has decided to arrange her marriage Jasmine Fahroodhi’s Iranian father has always fascinated her. With his strange habits and shrouded past, she cannot fathom how he ended up marrying her prim American mother, although lately it seems that love in general is just as incomprehensible.           Failing out of school just shy of graduation after a disastrous romance sends her into a tailspin, a conflicted Jasmine returns home without any idea where her life is headed.           Her father has at least one idea: he has plans for a hastegar, an arranged marriage, between Jasmine and whatever man he sees fit. Confused, furious, yet intrigued, Jasmine meets suitor after suitor with increasingly disastrous, and humorous, results. Only when she begins to open herself up to the mysteries of familial and romantic love does Jasmine discover the truth about her evasive father—and the depths of her own strength—in Elizabeth Eslami’s highly original and striking debut novel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pegasus Books
• Release date: Jul 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781453218006

Elizabeth Eslami

Iranian-American author Elizabeth Eslami was born in South Carolina in 1978.  She holds a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and an M.F.A. in creative writing from Warren Wilson College. She has published numerous short stories. Bone Worship is her first novel. She lives in Eugene, OR.

Reviews for Bone Worship

[pdbkwm-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

What a bummer. I thought this book would be good, since it has a nice cover and the blurb sounded interesting, but the main character is incredibly whiny and stubborn. The characters, other than the main one, are not fleshed out properly. Her father is cold, distinct, and is a doctor. The main character wants to know more about him, so we get to hear stories about his childhood. The thing is, a lot of those times we have no idea whether those stories are fully true or not.

Not that this matters, because I've stopped caring.

I reached the part where Jasmine tries and fails at seducing her father's friend, Don, only for it to backfire and destroy a friendship, and now I'm done. I'm bored and I don't really care what happens to Jasmine.

[kaitanya64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The daughter of an Iranian immigrant father and American mother, Jasmine returns home to small town Georgia after failing out of college. her father decides an arranged marriage will resolve the situation and sets about finding a suitable match. Jasmine attempts to come to some understanding of her emotionally distant parents and her own identity while wondering if they just might be right about the relative brevity of romantic love. A lovely story that illuminates some of the struggles and confusions of cross-cultural families and both the special connection and the frustrations of the relationships between immigrants and their children. Not a "heavy" book, but well worth reading.