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4.21 AVERAGE
4.21 AVERAGE
I'm not as attached to Marjane's story as I thought I would be. The illustrations are fine but I think the overall atmosphere is lacking depth and eeriness to it.
I originally read Persepolis for my English class, but it ends in the worst way. I enjoyed the first book enough that I decided to see if my library had the second one.
It was very different. It seemed that the first bookj was more about the war, while Persepolis 2 focused a lot on Marjane growing up. She is living on her own for a lot of the book, and she has to learn how to do that.
She also learns a lot about love and relationships. The romances were so funny. Laughing out loud kind of thing.
It was very different. It seemed that the first bookj was more about the war, while Persepolis 2 focused a lot on Marjane growing up. She is living on her own for a lot of the book, and she has to learn how to do that.
She also learns a lot about love and relationships. The romances were so funny. Laughing out loud kind of thing.
Spoiler
Marji absolutely hates doing what the government wants her to do. She gets married to her boyfriend because it is required in order to live in the same house, rent hotel rooms etc. Three years after they get married, she divorces because she wasn't happy. What frustrated me the most was what her Dad said to her after the divorce. He said he knew the relationship wouldn't last but that Marji would only realize that if she got married to him. I just didn't like this because I don't agree with that mindset at all.
Marjane Satrapi follows up [b:Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood|9516|Persepolis The Story of a Childhood (Persepolis, #1)|Marjane Satrapi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1425871473l/9516._SX50_.jpg|3303888] with another masterpiece. In the second book of the series, Marji finds herself in Austria, battling with trying to fit in the Western world. At the same time, she feels guilty about being in Vienna while her parents are in a war torn Iran. In this volume, she describes the multiple struggles of many immigrants who come from countries in conflict: everything from the longing of a home that isn't there anymore to relating to the xenophobes.
Upon her return to Iran, I found the little ways in which the female students rebelled to the religious authorities fascinating: using the veil a little too short or putting lipsticks. The read is also great to understand how war, conflict and authoritarianism repress organized rebellion and break down the collective moral. Again, Satrapi humanizes the victims of conflict without idealizing them.
Upon her return to Iran, I found the little ways in which the female students rebelled to the religious authorities fascinating: using the veil a little too short or putting lipsticks. The read is also great to understand how war, conflict and authoritarianism repress organized rebellion and break down the collective moral. Again, Satrapi humanizes the victims of conflict without idealizing them.
I liked this volume much better than #1-2... although I didn't care for her drug-fueled school life, it was more interesting to see the path she followed throughout this stage of her life, especially when she moved back to Iran and had to face the fundamentalist government that was absolutely ridiculous. Couldn't draw a woman, but drawing a man without a beard is calling him a "sissy"... it's so sad to think that it's dangerous for women to be women in countries with such patriarchal governments.
This is the graphic novel sequel to Satrapi's first memoir: it begins in 1984, picking up almost immediately where the first left off. Satrapi has been sent to Vienna for safe-keeping and education, where her parents hope she will become more than the fundamentalist regime in Iran would have let her be. Satrapi writes of the inevitable loneliness at living in a foreign country but it is an experience compounded by her nationality--in Vienna, she is seen as a dirty foreigner and as she struggles to adapt and find community, she discovers she likes herself less and less. Impetuously, she returns to Iran and finds herself more a Westerner than an Iranian there; and in an attempt to find wholeness, she begins attending classes in Tehran, where she meets her husband. What I love about Satrapi's work is she takes a very alien part of the world and a tumultuous time in history and humanizes it--as in her first novel, the reader discovers with Satrapi the way Iran has changed and what it means to live there, allowing the reader to more deeply experience the fear, awe, and sadness Satrapi feels. The illustrations are lovely and I was very sad to finish this book.
Satrapi is a force to be reckoned with. As if her childhood wasn't horrific enough, her adolescence was so raw with the terrors of war and humanity. It was a difficult read. I took breaks in between chapters because my empathy couldn't handle it. I was angry. I was horrified. I know very well that things like this have happened to people but seeing it in a graphic novel, a seemingly disjointed vehicle for such a story, hit so hard. It was extremely well done and makes me want to write my mother's story of leaving Romania and her hardships.
Life is too short to be lived badly.
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We can only feel sorry for ourselves when our misfortunes are still supportable. Once this limit is crossed, the only way to bear the unbearable is to laugh at it.
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I finally understood what my grandmother meant. If I wasn't comfortable with myself, I would never be comfortable.
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It's fear that makes us lose our conscience. It's also what transforms us into cowards.
Life is too short to be lived badly.
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We can only feel sorry for ourselves when our misfortunes are still supportable. Once this limit is crossed, the only way to bear the unbearable is to laugh at it.
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I finally understood what my grandmother meant. If I wasn't comfortable with myself, I would never be comfortable.
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It's fear that makes us lose our conscience. It's also what transforms us into cowards.
I think I liked this more than "The Story of a Childhood," which I liked quite a bit. The author had an intense vulnerability but still managed to make me laugh and tear up.
Definitely more interesting than the first one but there are some opinions that I don’t necessarily agree with and that affected my rating. As a Muslim who happens to live in the Middle East there are so many things recounted in this memoir that opposed our religious doctrine and negated our cultural heritage. Who said that the veil is oppressive!!! God asks women to be veiled to get more respect and dignity and it is not a means of degradation or oppression. There are more points in this narration that I can’t justify but I think that the way it was told is good hence the 2 stars.
dark
emotional
inspiring
fast-paced