This story is about two very different Nazanins. The Candaian Nazanin Afshin-Jam is a runner-up to Miss World. She is Iranian-born and in the world of fashion and music. She competed for Miss World in China and was wondering how she could make a difference using her media attention. Upon the hundreds of e-mails she received was one from an Iranian teenager named Nazanin who was in prison because she had killed a man. The Iranian Nazanin Fatehi has grown up in poverty. She wants only to learn to read and become a teacher. She has gone to school sporadically because she must help her mother to raise the other children or to take care fo her father when ill. Nazanin is caught up in a violent situation when she is cornered in a field with some young men who are going to rape her. She defends herself with a knife and stabs the man to death. She is imprisoned and sentenced to death. Nazanin Afshin-Jam must battle the United Nations and a myriad of other organizations to get the Iranian government to stay the execution. The perseverance and sheer work effort finally pays off. We hear of these Muslim-based countries and their treatment of women. This story is but one but really brings home how little value is placed on the life of a female.

Nazanin won Miss Canada in 2003 and was heading out to China to compete in Miss World with many questions in her head. How could she use the platform of competing in Miss World to do better in the world? How could she convince people that thought she was negatively impacting young kid's body image that she believed in outer and inner beauty? Nazanin walks the reader through her times in China and how she won second place in the Miss World competition. When she comes home, there's an email telling her that a teenager with the same name is being held in Iran, about to be put to death, for murdering a boy who was attempting to rape her and her niece. With Nazanin looking to make a difference in the world, and given that her heritage is Iranian, she takes this cause on. The story of Iranian Nazanin is heart-breaking. Growing up poor, she was never given many chances in life. All she wanted was to learn to read, be able to tell stories, and become a school teacher. She was continuously pulled out of school to help her mom bring up her siblings or when her father was almost killed. As a teenager, Nazanin is out with her close friend and niece when some boys follow them to a field and attempt to rape them. Holding a knife in her hand, Nazanin stabs one of the attackers and kills him. She is charged with his murder and sentenced to death. Though I've read many books about Afghanistan and Iraq about the injustices that happen to females there, I'm still continuously surprised by how societies treat their children and women. This book does a good job of showing the atrocities that some of the women have to go through. I really enjoyed the Iranian Nazanin's story and found it captivating to read. I also quite enjoyed the ending of this book. With fiction novels, everything usually ends up just the way you want it. In this case, it doesn't. Connection between the Nazanin's falls off, though many requests for money are sent. And there are so many other teenagers on death row in counties in the Middle East that follow the same laws as Iran that it's almost insurmountable. Canadian Nazanin seems to be keeping up with the cause, and I applaud her for that.

Story Description: Harper Collins Publishers Ltd|May 14, 2012| Hardcover|ISBN: 978-1-55468-972-9 In 2006, Vancouver’s Nazanin Afshin-Jam was on top of the world. A year earlier, she had won runner-up at Miss World, the first time an Iranian-born woman had ever finished so high in the competition. She had signed her first record deal and was a sought-after fashion model. But one rainy afternoon, Nazanin received an email that would change her life. Please help! Please save her! Thousands of miles away in Tehran, the subject of that email: a poverty stricken seventeen-year-old Kurdish-Iranian named Nazanin Fatehi was preparing for her execution, punishment for an act that was, in her mind, not a crime: she had stabbed a man who had tried to rape her. Afshin-Jam quickly came to Fatehi’s defence, striding into the world of the United Nations and international diplomacy, attempting to force Iran to reopen Fatehi’s case and stay the execution. The Tale of Two Nazanins weaves the inspiring real-life stories of two women, their sisterly bond and their fight for justice that, for the first time since the 1979 revolution, brought the Iranian regime to its knees, if only for a brief moment. My Review: It is not very often that I don’t actually write a review of my own but this is one of those times. This was the most startlingly, eye-opening, heart-crushing piece of non-fiction I’ve read in a while. I think the description above tells, in fairly good detail, what this story is about. I recommend that everyone read it you’ll be appalled at the number of executions of “teenagers” and the brutality that they suffer at the hands of their captors. It’s unimaginable!