“It’s hard to stop reading…Horrible as it is, you don’t want to turn away from the girl’s first-person nightmare. The language in The Bathhouse is simple, the dialogue taut, the tension immediate.”

“[A] gut-wrenching, eye-opening novel. The Bathhouse shows what happens when ideology runs amok. It honors the humanity and sacrifice of the victims.”

“The starkly simple tale she tells is convincing in tone and substance…Moshiri’s impressive novel works at two levels, telling a compelling story while bearing witness to a brutal period in Iranian history.”

“Bernadette Dunne’s narration of the young woman’s ordeal is rendered poignantly. Her delivery is emotional—the pain and despair of the characters are present in her voice in just the right amounts…the results make the book easier to listen to than it might be to read.”

“Both a resolutely nonpartisan antirevolutionary brief and a gripping, harrowing story of personal courage and endurance.”

“Some of the torture scenes are graphic, but there is a great sense of humanity and caring in the face of unreasonable treatment and abuse…the insight of the book is universal.”

“Even as the prison strips away all hope, Moshiri never once lets us forget the humanity of the women of The Bathhouse as they form a family, with all of a family’s capacity for support, betrayal, despair, and dignity. The Bathhouse is beautiful and excruciating, written with such grace that it seems to exist out of time.”