By 
Lori Foroozandeh grew up a sexually and mentally abused child. She began to wonder what was normal in her life and whether the “games” her family played with her were good or bad for her. As it always turned out, they were extremely mean to Lori. Her “tickling” episodes became much more than tickling. The only reason she emphasized her abuse is so you can realize how much of the rest of her life turned into abuse. She got to the point where physical and sexual abuse was something she came to accept as normal.
Lori was originally married at fifteen to a much older man when she felt she had to emancipate herself. That marriage did not last long. At seventeen she joined the army and fell in love with her recruiter and she got pregnant right away. They married after he went AWOL and was dishonorably discharged. Lori went to army training and was selected in a group to see how the women reacted in combat. Lori went AWOL several times and finally decided that the military was not for her future. Several years later she was captured and separated from the army. Lori’s life had gotten pretty wild!
When she was twenty-seven years old, Lori met her next husband, Mohammad Foroozandeh, who also had children. He talked her into, or actually, forced her to go to Iran, where she said that things had changed so much for women and that her wild record in the United States would end. Upon her arrival in Iran, Ella Lori was forced to wear Muslim clothing. Lori became an English teacher. She hated living in Iran with all the customs that she had to follow and, to add to her misery, Mohammad started beating and slapping her even more when he discovered that she Lori was trying to find her way back to the United States.
Mohammad and Lori were abducted while on the streets together, but each was taken to a different location. These places were camps, certainly not camps as we know them. From here, things went downhill quickly for Lori. She was chained 24/7 to another girl. They received little food, most of which they scavenged from what camp guards tossed on the ground or scooped up water from mud puddles. They ate bugs, rats, or whatever they could catch, mostly raw. Was it Mohammad’s drug dealing that brought her to such a place? She did not know
This continued for months and in various camps as she was moved from one to another. They were taken from their sleep or rest, taken to another area of the camp, repeatedly tortured and raped. The soldiers took turns so that each woman did what he wanted. The women got to the point of staring into space while this was happening, but there was no way any human would get used to such disgrace. Some of the things that happened to them while they were in the camps are so horrifying that you will shudder as you read and wonder how they even stayed alive. The truth is that many did not survive it.
As I read, I wondered how a human could do such things to other humans. Some sadistic things would not be carried out in animals and much less in humans. I will stop here so as not to spoil any of the later parts of the book. Occasionally, I would stop reading and think, “did this really happen in our world?” Only Lori and the many in her camp, many of whom didn’t make it, know what they went through.