Female Life on Planet Earth: 'A spellbinding fever dream' Jonathan Escoffery

by Laleh Khadivi

By the award-winning author of the acclaimed Kurdish trilogy, a novel about a daughter discovering her mother’s secret past as a violent militant in the Iranian Revolution When Heti’s mother, Ana, dies, she leaves behind a spotless affectionate parent, modern career woman, and life of the party. Heti moves in a daze until her grief is upended by the arrival of an unmarked package containing photographs of Ana as a young woman—robed, standing in front of a burning building, and pointing a gun at a group of sobbing women. Female Life on Planet Earth follows Heti as she raises teenage daughters, keeps up with client accounts, sits in LA traffic, and prepares to host the traditional anniversary memorial—all while quietly reeling with the violent secrets of the woman she thought she knew. Though the dead can’t answer her questions, the living never seem to shut up. Heti is buoyed as she listens to the women who populate her hilarious aunts and cousins, aggressive soccer moms, business associates, dear friends, and total strangers. Inside these surprising, uproarious stories of female life, Heti discovers the selves women hide away, selves defiantly in search of pleasure, autonomy, delight, and connection. Heti begins to understand the complex and contradictory possibilities that exist inside every woman—including her mother, including herself. As the one-year mark of Ana’s death arrives, Heti calls together the women who knew her and asks Who was my mother, truly? And who are we? Told with humor and emotional precision, Female Life on Planet Earth is a celebration of lineage, inheritance, and the boundlessness of women over time and space.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Literature

198 pages, Kindle Edition

Expected publication September 22, 2026

About the author

Laleh Khadivi was born in Esfahan, Iran, in 1977. She received her MFA from Mills College and was a Creative Writing Fellow at Emory University. She has been awarded a Whiting Award, a Pushcart Prize, and an NEA Literature Fellowship. She has also worked as a director, producer, and cinematographer of documentary films. Khadivi lives in Northern California.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book within 24 hours - once I began, Khadivi's exquisite prose, as incisive as it is sublime, carried me like a tide through to the very end of the story.

This novel is a masterful exploration of grief, mothers and daughters, and the beautiful complexity of women's lives and identities. Khadivi's portrayal of Heti, her mother, as well as every passing mother, daughter, wife, friend or sister described in the novel, even in passing was incredibly nuanced, intricate, and moving. Khadivi's writing is elegantly efficient, the novel clocking in at less than 250 pages, with every word measured and meaningful. I will be thinking about this story for a long time to come.

[Abbie ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 🌟

Heti is grieving the death of her mother when an unmarked package arrives containing photographs that completely change everything she thought she knew about her. As she tries to make sense of this discovery, she begins talking to the women who knew her mother best, uncovering their complicated, contradictory and often surprising stories along the way.

I really enjoyed the exploration of womanhood and the way the story looks at all the different lives, secrets and experiences women carry with them. I also really loved the moments of humour and tenderness throughout, especially alongside some of the darker revelations.

I did find myself feeling a little disconnected from the story at times, and there were parts that felt slower than I would have liked, but I really appreciated what the author was trying to explore. A thought provoking and often wonderfully strange read!

Thank you to the publisher for gifting me a proof copy x

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a lot, Heti began, and every day since she died, I feel like I know her less and less. Like she was one way to us, to the world, and inside, to herself, she was someone else. Since she’s been gone, I feel like I have to make her up, piece by piece, bit by bit, just to remember her. And I am not sure I am remembering her as she really was or as I want her to be. Heti waited. I’m not sure I even know who she really was, and if I found out, would I even like her? Heti’s breath caught in her chest. What if she was a bad person, Heti pleaded, why would you throw a party for a bad person?

 
The fourth novel of a Kurdish-born Iranian-American filmmaker and novelist – whose first three Kurish trilogy novels “The Age of Orphans”, “The Walking” and “A Good Country” were characterised by the author herself in an author’s note in my edition as “a trilogy about three generations of men”  and elsewhere as “books written in the voice of men about men’s worlds” – a multi-generational exploration of diaspora with a very masculine focus.  This then is a deliberate shift to a female perspective and an exploration of “the boundlessness of women over space and time” and (again as per the authors note) about the silence of women in many family conversations and the realization (in respect of her own mother) that “her silence, my silence, is actually an enormous container, full of memory, desire, terror, hilarity and courage, independence and need”.
 
He novel takes place over a year – with Section headings based on the Seasons, and with sub-sections which include “Vernal Equinox”, “Summer Solstice”, “Equinox” and “Winter Solstice” as well as astrological themes “Jupiter”, “Gravity”, “Black Holes”, “The Strong Force” etc which fit her aim (the closing of her author note) to explore how “the stories of women, shared between women, serve as the gravity that anchors them to one another and to the surface of earth”.
 
And the year is crucial – it marks the time from the death of the first party narrator Heti (an Iranian-American accountant) mother’s death - a death which leaves her reeling as mother and daughter were very close.  And the lead up to the party she is culturally and traditionally expected to hold after a year – a party of feasting, ostentatious grieving and remembering and attended only by women (form all parts of the deceased’s life).
 
The main perturbation in the novel (the perturbation and eccentriticy of orbits is an explicit theme) comes in the second chapter when an anonymous person from the UK sends her some pictures of her mother casually carrying a machine gun and she quickly realises (as is confirmed by a second letter) participating in the Iranian revolution.  This is as far removed from the image Heti has of her mother as is possible.
 
Much of the novel is her encounters and discussions with other women such as her Aunt, her Aunt’s two daughters (her cousins) one of who does stand up comedy another who holds a Winter solstice party, her two daughters, the clientele of one of her own clients who provide filming for women-demand erotica, a poet she hires to write a poem for the wake, an aggressive soccer Mum, a delivery driver, a communal experience at the concert of a legendary female-generation-spanning pop star, a headmistress telling her about her daughter’s rebellion, a Mexican immigrant caterer friend and her indigenous-right-activist daughter – with the only prominent male characters her husband and a misogynistic (especially about the menopause) neighbour.
 
And through these often quirky, frequently humourous encounters Heti tries to come to terms with her shattered image of her mother, which often allows the other women to explore their own stories of female life and particularly female generational relationships. 
 
If anything I did feel that the Iranian backstory was starting to take a back seat a little, more acting as a catalyst to a fascinating book rather than being explored in its own right – but this changed completely in the last part of the novel – a lengthy set piece scene at the one-year death-anniversary memorial event where Heti who has hitherto tried to evade her mother’s past (and ripped up the second letter she received) decides to make the first set of photos the centrepiece of the event and to provoke her mother’s friends and relatives into finally being honest with her about her mother’s background …….. and this leads to a series of revelations and opinions as the container of the silence is finally broken open and we hear the memories of desire, terror and courage that lead both to Heti’s birth and her mother’s move to America without Heti’s father.
 
Given the quality of the writing and its topicality I think this is a strong Booker contender (and its published by a three times winning independent press) – I would also rate it a long way ahead of the not dissimilar “The Nights Are Quiet In Tehran” on this year’s International Booker shortlist.
 
Recommended.
 
My thanks to Oneworld publications for an ARC via NetGalley.
 

No, Heti said in deep consideration, no, I think you’re wrong. Women are not crazy, we are probably more like this bush, cut back, coming back, threatened and then changing, dying, coming alive again in our children. Constant regeneration. Which, Heti offered, might look like madness to a man who just lives his life straight, like an arrow, from the start of the record to the end. For women, the needle skips. We are repetitions within repetitions, with infinite variations, some in our single lifetime, some in the lifetimes before or beyond. We change, and change again, to jump the skip, to survive. The neighbor stopped cutting and Heti went on, with a small smile. Celia didn’t go crazy, she just changed like women must. One minute she’s your girlfriend, and then your housewife, and then a mother, and then one day, a dimensional woman with a mind of her own, while you, Heti said, are trapped in the limits of man.

[Lou G · Rating 4 out of 5]

This focuses on the year following the death of Heti's mother, a year of mourning in Iranian culture. During this time, she starts to receive packages from England, containing photos of her mother back in Iran in her younger years.
Over the course of the year, she starts to learn things about her mother she didn’t know about, and over time realises, she didn’t actually know her mother at all. Unable to confront the one person she wants to; she finds solace in talks and conversations she has with the women around her. Through their stories - some funny, some surprising - she also learns that, whilst she may not have known who her mother really was, the same can be said for any woman. Every woman has a complicated life, some with secrets, some with contradiction. So, she starts to ask herself, why should this be any different for her mother? Just because she’s her mom, doesn’t make her perfect. She certainly isn’t so why would you expect your mother to be?
The line, "the weird thing is, I'm more interested in my mother now she's dead," is actually what drew me into reading this. The entire premise of discovering your mother's past definitely caught my attention.
With the one-year anniversary approaching, and a customary memorial to organise, she calls together the women who know her best, and it raises the ultimate question: who are we?

Whilst grief is different for everyone, I could relate somewhat to the cultural mourning customs discussed here. Whilst they aren't entirely the same as Judaism, there are monthly and annual customs we follow, so this wasn't completely unfamiliar to me. We don't have the large family memorial at the end of the first year, but we do have the initial week-long shiva and the unveiling of a headstone, marking the end of that mourning period.
Just like the one-year memorial, the one-year cycle of the story gave an immersive structure to the overall narrative. Moving through the seasons alongside Heti as she learned more about her mother and listened to the stories of the women around her worked really well.

What really stood out to me was how much this book explores the shared experiences of womanhood, despite how different our individual lives, cultures and circumstances can be. Throughout the stories of these women, you see how we are all shaped by the expectations placed upon us, the relationships we have and the experiences we carry. There are obviously huge differences in how women experience the world, but there is something incredibly relatable in recognising those common pressures and expectations.

I did find myself disconnected from the text at times, and I think this stemmed largely from the writing style. Dialogue blends into the surrounding text without punctuation and, whilst I eventually got used to it, I frequently found myself going back over sentences and realising, wait, that was someone saying something? It definitely pulled me out of the story at times. I can appreciate that this style may work beautifully for some readers, but it's something I'd definitely suggest being mindful of going in.
There were slower sections, but I think that is somewhat inherent to the structure. This is a book built around conversations unfolding over an entire year, and sometimes conversations in real life are slow, meandering and seemingly ordinary. In that sense, the pacing felt quite authentic.

This was an exploration of womanhood, full of thought, humour and, quite frankly, a little bit strange. It takes you on a journey to learn more about Heti's mother, but ultimately it's also about how we, as women, are shaped by the women around us: our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters and friends. Even the stranger on the street. We all leave little pieces of ourselves with one another, sometimes without even realising it.

Thank you to Laleh Khadivi and Novel Tours for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Dima · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book tells the story of Heti, a woman in her late thirties or early forties who lives in Los Angeles, having moved to the United States from Iran with her mother when she was three years old. The story begins with her mother's death, and the year she spends preparing for the memorial ceremony marking the anniversary of her passing. The narrative unfolds somewhat erratically over the course of that year, following Heti as she navigates life as a working mother of two daughters while spending time with friends and family. What sets the story in motion is an anonymous package that nudges her towards discovering who her mother really was beyond the caring woman she had always known.

The novel is essentially about the multidimensionality of women and how those different dimensions evolve over the course of a lifetime. While Heti and her mother form the emotional centre of the story, the year of preparations also brings Heti into contact with numerous other women, each of whom possesses aspects of her life that remain invisible to those closest to her. It is these hidden dimensions, nevertheless, that define them.

The book is both thoughtful in its themes and elegant in its execution. While not without flaws (there is a noticeable strain of anti-male sentiment, sometimes tongue-in-cheek and sometimes more earnest) it remains a compelling exploration of womanhood. My main reservation is that the author seems to view both the novel and herself as being deeply rooted in immigrant culture. In reality, the book is suffused with Americanisms to an extent that feels somewhat incongruous, making it less universal than it might otherwise have been. Yes, the protagonist is of Iranian origin, but she is, for all intents and purposes, an Angeleno through and through.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advance review copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Virginia Woolf said that we think back through our mothers and this book dramatises not just the way we are shaped by the women who bear us and bring us up, but by other women in our world: aunts, grandmothers, sisters, cousins, daughters, friends, co-workers, room-mates...

For all the good stuff here, there is a slight mis-match between this book's blurb which goes heavy on Ana's role in the Iranian Revolution, and the contents: the title is a far better indicator of what this book is about - women's lives in all their aspects, the hidden, the unsaid, the untalked about. The piecing together by Heti of her mother's life as a reactionary revolutionary policing other 'rebellious' women (something akin to the Aunts in The Handmaid's Tale) comes right at the very end. But before that Heti pretty much just talks to women. Some of these conversations are not terribly convincing in a realistic sense, so it's best to think of this book as a stylised text, one which eschews speechmarks so that all the female voices deliberately merge.

Despite some disappointment in not getting more about the Iranian story, this won me over for the intense focus on womanhood as a complex state of being. It's still a little subversive to people a book pretty much with all women characters (whereas is completely normalised to have books full of men...) and the changing moods, the insight into the precarity of immigrant women, the way they are both at home in Los Angeles and made to feel 'different', even the humour (including a set from a stand-up comic that had me snorting with laughter!) made this a fast read but also an enriching one.

Note to self: check out Khadivi's Kurdish trilogy, even if, as she notes in a foreword, full of men!

Many thanks to Oneworld for an ARC via NetGalley

[RudenottoRead · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a gorgeous surprise this book was! The writing, the complexity of women’s lives touch, the subtle sense of humor, the insight of culture, all together brought to life a story I just wanted to read without a break.

Heti is someone’s daughter and now someone’s mother, who’s trying to cope with the loss of her dear mother. But not only the physical loss, also the perception smudged by some lies (according to the received pictures).
Once her perception of her mother gets bruised, Heti can’t stop questioning who was she after all? How can someone you thought you knew becomes a new version even after their death?
Through the entire journey of grief and uncertainty, Heti starts to understand the full complexity of being a woman and the layers of personalities that makes them so intricate.
In a world of so many human types and struggles, being a woman is stil, in my eyes, the deepest and empowering experience.

My triggers
* Is your identity stripped from you once you found out some missing puzzle pieces of your past?
* Does toughness come through inheritance?
* Can we agree that sometimes religion and culture get lost into each other’s territory?
* Just because you are genetically related to your family, that doesn’t mean your soul belongs to them too.
* I hide behind sense of humour majority of times. Depressed? Laugh a bit. Too tired to cry? Laugh a bit. Someone died? Oh god, this is gonna sound morbid, but I have to laugh a bit.
* Astrology believer here with huge desire to learn more about it.
* No one adapts faster to any new situation than a woman.
* Loss and grief differ from human to human.
* Women are always regenerating and reinventing themselves, while men can easily live life in a straight line.

[Jamad · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one a great deal.

What begins as a daughter’s attempt to understand her late mother gradually becomes something much broader: a novel about memory, immigration, friendship and the different versions of ourselves that we present to different people. The premise hooked me immediately, but what kept me reading was the way each conversation added another layer, not just to Ana, but to the women around her.

I particularly liked the structure. Each chapter introduces another voice, another perspective, and another reminder that no one—not even those closest to us—is ever fully knowable. It could easily have become repetitive, but I found each encounter brought something fresh, whether poignant, funny or quietly revealing.

Although the mystery of Ana’s past provides the framework, this is much more interested in character than in delivering dramatic revelations. If you go into it expecting a thriller, you may be disappointed. I found the emotional journey far more satisfying than the search for definitive answers.

It perhaps lost a little momentum in the final quarter, and there were moments when I felt some of the conversations made similar points. Even so, the warmth of the writing and the compassion shown towards its characters meant I was more than happy to stay with it.

A thoughtful and quietly affecting novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love, or whether we simply know the version of them they chose to show us.

[Adrian Dooley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of Heti, a married mother of two whose mother has just passed away.
Having moved from Iran to Los Angeles when she was 3 years old Heti must not only have to deal with her loss but immediately start planning a traditional Iranian ceremony to take place in her house in a years time to mark the anniversary of her passing.

We spend that year with Heti preparing for the event as she meets some larger than life female characters in ordinary and extraordinary situations. Some of the exchanges between them felt very Tarantinoesque (which is a good thing in my book) as they chew the cud of life.

There is also a little mystery to it as well as Heti receives some photos anonymously in the post of her mother back in Iran in her early years. Covered from head to toe and pointing a rifle at some women, this isn’t the mother Heti has known and loved.

I really enjoyed this one. It’s a story about family and grief and women from different walks of life and how they get by.
It read incredibly easily and I finished it in no time.

Slight criticisms. Were there any positive male characters in it? Hetis husband seemed to exist only in name for most of the book and when introduced seemed like an afterthought.

4 strong stars for this one.

Many thanks to the publisher for the ARC through Netgalley.

[Reading . Current · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love that we have these episodic moments of women's stories. Heti comes across these women in her dailly life whether it's at the grocery store or through her family and they are an exploration of what it is to be female.

Mina (Heti's cousin) was wondering through the woods and her partner and children had to drive back for her when they realised they'd forgotten her and as a result of this she became a comedian. This is one of the many stories we have where women are decentralised from family once their work as 'mother'/ 'caregiver' is complete. The role that they consumed becomes obsolete.

The writing is stunning you can feel the precision of the wording and for a short book it really opens the reader up to questions.

Initially, I thought our protagonist had a dissociative passiveness and in part I still do. But now, I can see it for what it is; grief. Grief at the loss of a mother. Grief at never having known who she was before she was a mother and the grief of being a woman.

This really is a fantastic book to dissect especially in regard to the question, 'Who was your mother before she was a mother?'

[andshe.reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a surprise, in the best way possible. Khadivi has such beautiful writing, I really didn't want to put the book down. I love how all of a sudden along comes a true woman's story. A Female Life on Planet Earth really empathises on the way we are shaped by the women who surround us, mothers, grandmother's, aunts, sisters, cousins & friends even female strangers.

Heti is a daughter, she's also now a mother & is figuring out how to deal with her loss of her own mother. When she receives a random package. Three different pictures of her mother that perceive her mother in a different light other than how Heti knows her. Heti then goes onto question who she was & how can she mourn someone she no longer feels she knew.

Grief is a very individual journey & throughout Hetis Journey she understands how complex a womans life can be.

The story definitely had me paying attention, very thought provoking & Khadivi has a way of describing things ie football in such a mesmerising way.

For such a small book it's a story that really packed a punch & I'll be thinking of it for a long time to come.

Thank you to Novel Tours & OneWorld Publications for a copy of the book.

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Oneworld Publications for the Advanced Reader Copy.

“This is what happens when you do not mourn the dead, they come back any way they can.”

A beautiful, intelligent and deeply moving meditation on grief, daughters, mothers and the hidden lives women carry beneath the roles they inherit.

A daughter spends a year mourning her mother, only to discover that grief is not the end of knowing someone. Sometimes it is where the real understanding begins.

The story follows Heti in the year after her mother’s death as she prepares for the traditional one-year remembrance ritual expected of the eldest daughter in an Iranian family. Alongside her grief, mysterious packages begin arriving at her home, revealing fragments of her mother’s life, desires, fears and inner world that Heti never knew. Throughout the year, Heti also finds herself in a series of conversations with people both intimate and unexpected - family members, strangers, old connections and chance encounters - each one revealing another layer of what it means to be a woman, a daughter and a mother.

This book felt like grief wrapped in poetry. It is quiet, philosophical, melancholic and full of those kinds of lines you have to stop and reread because they somehow explain an entire life. It is not plot-heavy in the traditional sense, but the emotional and intellectual weight of it carried the story.

What I loved most was the way it explored motherhood not as something saintly or simple, but as something layered, private, consuming and often invisible. There is such a powerful thread throughout the novel about how women disappear into the roles they are expected to play - mother, wife, daughter - and how much of themselves they bury in order to outwardly survive.

“That is a mother’s job… to hide the self, the fears and rages, to present a surface that is calm, that is steady, that is safe. They think of it as a kind of generosity but really it’s a disappearance.”

Honestly, that line alone could have carried an entire book.

The relationship between mothers and daughters is handled so beautifully here. The novel understands that daughters spend so much of their lives trying to fit into the shape their mothers made for them, while also quietly trying to break out of it. There is love, frustration, admiration, resentment, guilt, duty and tenderness all mixed together in a way that felt incredibly true.

The Iranian cultural backdrop added so much richness to the story. The one-year mourning ritual gave the book a beautiful structure - moving through one full turn of the seasons before grief loosens its grip. There is something so moving about the idea that mourning takes a whole year to settle into your bones. One summer, one autumn, one winter, one spring.

I also loved the immigrant observations woven throughout. They were some of the sharpest, most memorable parts of the book for me because they captured that very specific survival mentality - the constant “what if something happens?” mindset, the saving, the preparing, the understanding that stability can disappear at any moment. The author captures a whole inherited worldview - the fear, the vigilance, the knowledge that security is fragile. The book is full of those moments where it suddenly zooms out and says something huge about women, immigrants, daughters, grief or family in a way that feels both specific and universal.

The writing itself is lovely. It feels lyrical without becoming overwritten, philosophical without losing its emotional core. There are so many beautiful reflections on poetry, womanhood and transformation.

“Poetry comes from the space between dimensions, where you can linger outside of time, between things.”

This is one of those books where the atmosphere and the ideas matter just as much as the story itself. It is interested in what women inherit from each other - not just objects or traditions, but silence, fear, duty, resilience, rage, softness, sacrifice and survival. It asks whether we can ever truly know our mothers, or whether we only ever know the version of them they allowed us to see.

This is a novel to sit with, underline, think about and carry around long after you finish it.

[Salomée Lou · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

"THIS IS A MOTHER'S JOB, SHE SAID, TO HIDE THE SELF, THE FEARS AND RAGES, SO THAT THEIR CHILDREN DON'T SEE THE DARKNESS INSIDE THEM. THEY THINK OF IT AS A KIND OF GENEROSITY BUT REALLY, IT'S A DISAPPEARANCE."

Gorgeous book exploring motherhood, daughterhood, womanhood. And more largely identity: who are we when we're not a mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife? Can we be full?

Strata is my fave chapter and I won't explain further 🫶

I highlighted quite a lot of passages and gut-punching sentences that made me look up from the book, pause, and take a deep breath.

The only reason why it isn't a 5 stars is because I thought the chronology / structure was a bit confusing / experimental but maybe I'm being a too traditional reader. Or maybe it is a metaphor of grief and how the main character is in a dream-like state after losing her mother - all the edges feel blurry and fuzzy and surreal

(This is so minor and won't obstruct the understanding of the book)

❤️❤️❤️

[Ellie Moon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Oneworld Publications for providing me with an ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

“Female Life on Planet Earth” is a compelling and thoughtful book that follows a woman who discovers a hidden chapter of her mother’s life. While this is the general plot of the story, much of the book revolves around shorter vignettes in the form of other characters talking (in some cases straight monologuing) to Heti, the main character, with their particular insights on motherhood and womanhood.

Overall I enjoyed the book and there were some very powerful moments and imagery interspersed throughout. I did feel that some of the planetary imagery and character monologues were a bit forced and overdone at points, which took me out of the narrative and prevented me from forming a stronger sense of perspective and identity of the main character.

[J P · Rating 3 out of 5]

An episodic novel about how well we can know people and whether we are more than we present to the world. The loose structure follows the mourning period of a year following Heti's (the main character's) mother's death.

The writing is lyrical, but distant and passive, and while there are loose threads between the various interactions reported in the novel, as a whole the structure makes the whole untethered from reality and the characters too often behave and speak solely to serve the novel rather than in ways that feel truly authentic.

It reads like a novel aiming at profundity but I'm afraid for me it falls a bit short without anything new or interesting to reflect on, and the writing isn't compelling enough to overlook the flaws.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is really a meditation on the place of women - and particularly women who are also immigrants and mothers - in the world. It's beautifully written and thoughtful and tackles big themes. It's probably not for you if you're after a page turning plot, though, as it's really just a series of conversations between women in the aftermath of the narrator's mother's death which slowly reveal a hidden episode in the mother's past. These conversations are pretty much a device for revealing the story and do not sound like anything people would say to each other in real life (particularly the philosophical ruminations which take place between two mums at a Taylor Swift concert!!). I didn't mind that, but it might grate on others. Overall, I enjoyed this and would read the author again.

[Xiibalba · Rating 4 out of 5]

Female Life on Planet Earth by Laleh Khadivi follows Heti, who after her mother's death finds photos revealing a violent past as a militant in the Iranian Revolution, someone completely different from the woman she thought she knew. From there the book moves between generations of women, secrets, and the daughters and mothers who never fully see each other.
I went in expecting something closer to The Lion Woman of Tehran, so the first chapters left me a bit unsure. But once I settled into it I got really pulled in. What stayed with me most is how it handles relationships between women, and that truth that we never really know our parents, not the whole of them anyway. It also has moments that are genuinely funny, which caught me off guard given the subject matter.

[Brittany | BrittanyIsBooked · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC. All opinions are my own. The prose in this book is beautiful. I wasn’t certain that I was going to love the book, and chose it because I was interested in learning more about the mother and her role in the Iranian Revolution. What I received was a beautiful account of the love of women. The book spans the year after Heti’s mother’s death; the grieving period. Some moments are slower than others, but the book came with shocking bits of laughter sprinkled throughout. Honestly, it was a very appropriate and beautifully written account of grief and how life must go on.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

It wasn't written in the way I was anticipating, but I still didn't mind it being written as pieces of conversation throughout a year's time. I wasn't the biggest fan of the sexualised parts of the book, but I get why these subjects came up.
One line from the book sat with me the most, "..but then I realized that I married him because he's not an immigrant, because he doesn't wake up every day and think what if something happens, he just wakes up and waits for the world to give him what he wants."
Feminist lit fans will enjoy this book and those who are big fans of literary fiction at its essence.

[Aster Greenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was an interesting story, and an interesting way of formatting it, with the entire story essentially being conversations Heti has while she's waiting to mourn her mother properly. It's a series of small conversations that give us a larger idea into the life Heti's led as well as the kind of person her mother was. There's an additional conversation on womanhood in general that i found interesting as well. I really liked the ending. The explanation for who Heti's mom was was just very fascinating, and the description in the way Heti processes that is beautiful

[Nicole Steele · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got the opportunity to read this advance read a copy of this book due to the good giveaway. Personally, as I read this book, I sat and read this book in under 24 hours and I thought that it was very eye-opening. I personally would recommend people to read this book. This book follows a girl that moved from Iran to the United States. As I was reading the book I kept wanting to read more and more about this and kept turning the Paige to find out what happened next. I was unable to put this book down until I finished it.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely beautiful book. This story is about a woman whose mother passed away a year ago and now comes the time for a ceremony to honor her dead mother. While planning that event some pictures arrive in the mail of her mother when she was much younger, and leaves the woman shocked and wanting to know more. This book is about things women endure living life on this planet of ours. It’s about things our mother’s keep from us to protect us from the darkness that is life. Thank you to Goodreads for this advanced readers copy.

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written as series of conversations through a year, which can come across as a bit glitchy, this is certainly a literary fiction novel. It's hard-going, in terms of content and storyline, but those tricky sections which sometimes convey violence are well-handled. There is a strong feminist point being made through the threads in the narrative, and that's done very well. My thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

[katiethebookishworm · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a character-driven book that blends heavy, emotional themes like grief and generational trauma with moments of light hearted humour. The book jumps around quite a bit, mixing Heti’s daily life with deeper conversations. It’s a pretty short read that still tackles a lot of big topics.If you enjoy slow-burn stories focused on complex family dynamics, this one will give you lots to think about.

[DianaAitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

So pleased I received a copy of this lovely book from NetGalley.
It was a thoughtful and emotional read that stayed with me after I finished it.
Heti learns about her mother’s past following her death.
Gradually parts of the past are revealed, by various conversations in the lead up to the 1 year anniversary of the mother’s death.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to the publishers and netgalley for a free copy in return for open and honest review.

Powerful book through the eyes of different woman pre and post iranian revoultion and how female try to free of male domination and background is the daughter mourning her mother and a year before celebrate her life but does she really know her mother before her birth

[Emma-Louise Wykes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC for review.

This book really intrigued me, and it had some interesting ideas. Unfortunately, I thought it was much too short for any of these to fully develop.

I enjoyed the writing style, but the book felt quite rushed, and with a really abrupt ending.

Although this one wasn't for me, I will definitely be reading more of this author's work in the future.

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story about mothers dying, the before and afters. Being in this shitty club. My favorite quotes related to this

Reminded me of I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Towards Darkness

I learned a lot about Iranian culture and history. I like the idea of getting together a year after someone dies and reminiscing

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Intense to think the women who gave birth to us have all this life, and death, to them that has nothing to do with us and that even though their situations were so different, and they were halfway across the world from each other, they were both mothers with guns, with bullets made up of the same density of lead.”

[Ms Noob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great little read. Enjoyed watching the story of her mothers past unfold. The writing never felt flat or bloated just smooth and kept me hooked.
I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity to have read this beautiful book.