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While serving as a reporter for Time Magazine in Iran, Azadeh Moaveni found herself on a quest to understand cultural identity within the context of the younger Iranian generation's perception of their government's foreign and domestic policy. Moaveni discovered, however, that most young Iranians were more enthusiastic about forbidden American fashions, music, and pop culture — which represent the freedom and opportunity of the West that they desire for their own country — than political issues. Moaveni introduced her book as an account of her journey to her parents' native country, and her observations of the Iranian youth culture that she would have been a part of, had she grown up in Iran instead of California.

In Iran, Moaveni became a witness to the generation born during the Revolution, now in a state of constant negotiation of identity and participation within the current regime. In the late 1990s Iranian youth pushed boundaries, by participating in cultural activities the government deemed illegal, ignoring strictly-enforced religious rules, disseminating Western ideas, and embracing pop culture. This phenomenon was accompanied by a fear of inciting change overtly, as individuals asked themselves if their efforts would bring about any significant reform and at what cost. Change, Moaveni argued, would make them vulnerable to a regime that could place restrictions on the private lifestyles in which they had found relative freedom.

In 2000, Moaveni began following several young Iranians through their daily lives. Rather than finding a desire for active political change, in a majority of the accounts, she discovered apathy among youth towards the government. A crackdown on the reform movement had disillusioned a large part of the Iranian population. Moaveni mentioned the irony of the July 2005 presidential election, wherein high voter turnout disguised the youth's actual disengagement from politics and sense of powerlessness concerning the country's political future. She said that as a whole, participation in the political arena was not seen as a fruitful way of expressing one's opinion.

Furthermore, Moaveni explained, the majority of the population did not possess a broad understanding of what risks Iran was taking regarding domestic and foreign policy. She recalled the varied responses she received to the question of how Iranians felt about their government pursuing a nuclear program. Many argued that Iran should be allowed to possess such technology, but not under the current corrupt regime. Some expressed a fear of military confrontation from the United States and global authorities, while others worried about a disaster similar to what occurred at Chernobyl. Another common response was the desire for Western pressure on the government, forcing the regime to rethink its policies without direct provocation. Moaveni mentioned a widespread hope that such external pressure could accomplish what the internal reform movement cannot.

If not the Iranian government's domestic and foreign ambitions, what did young people think about? Moaveni proposed that it was the correlation between America and a lifestyle of freedom and economic opportunity that brought pop culture to the forefront of Iranian social discourse. By ignoring government-enforced religious rules against fraternization between the sexes, listening to ‘taboo’ music, and eating at faux-American establishments, Iranians have been adopting Western culture in a reasonably safe and public way as a means of voicing their displeasure with the regime. Moaveni summarized this aforementioned “pushing of boundaries” as the process of Iranian youth creating an identity for themselves in contrast to what their government represents.

Moaveni concluded with a discussion of how Western ideas are disseminated across the country. Foreign media and Internet forums, despite strict government control of the web, provide great global exposure to the Iranian public. Satellite television is even more expansive, transmitting international programming to about 60% of homes with televisions. Moaveni found that these sources are quickly replacing independent media; Internet blogs in particular offer a considerable amount of uncensored discussion. This sort of technology, in addition to discourse on university campuses, allows for political and social revolutionary ideals to spread beyond major cities into the countryside.

Thus, Moaveni believes that the consequence of Iranians' maneuvering around the system to covertly achieve change, coupled with the government's allowance of such transgressions (or simply a failure to enforce them), will coax the regime in the direction of reform.