Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.21 AVERAGE
4.21 AVERAGE
I didn’t enjoy this book as much as Persepolis 1 and I think that’s because in Persepolis 1 I read it for school and we did a lot of annotating and getting the guts of the story. But for Persepolis 2 I read it on my own time and was just trying to read the story without annotating.
I liked this one more than the first collection, maybe because the perspective was grown and it was a little different focused. Or maybe because it was on changing politics and less on war. Still super moving and super important, and I’m glad I finally got around to reading this story.
Marjane Satrapi has my immense respect for being able to write this graphic novel that reflects on the historic events that no one has ever told us about at school. Why is it that we spend months of learning about other great countries and completely refuse to acknowledge that while we were celebrating revolution, other parts of the world were killing each other’s nations?
I needed this to better understand what really happened and coming from someone so educated who experienced it herself, that’s the best I could ever hope for.
I needed this to better understand what really happened and coming from someone so educated who experienced it herself, that’s the best I could ever hope for.
I absolutely loved Persepolis, and knew there was no way this installment, in which Marjane leaves Iran during her teen years and then returns, could be as good. It was pretty close, though. This is a coming of age story told in Satrapi's distinct style of truth interspersed with humor and heartbreak. It did not make me weep in public like Persepolis did, but I still devoured it in about two hours and could've happily kept reading for several hours more.
Persepolis is no longer printed as two separate books, so when I finished Part I and didn't have Part II, it turned into a quest that took me around bookstores both in Ann Arbor and New York. Like many quests, most of the story was in the side roads I look along the way. The used bookstore I visited for the first time after walking by it for years, the tattered Ptolomaic maps I left the store with once I learned that they didn't have any graphic novels. The boy at the comic book store who encouraged me to buy Lords of Scotland, which I now carry around in my bag at all times, just in case.
I finally found it during my first visit to Greenlight Bookstore on a hot afternoon when I felt homesick and directionless. If I believe in any magic, this would be it. Like [b:Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood|9516|Persepolis The Story of a Childhood (Persepolis, #1-2)|Marjane Satrapi|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1425871473s/9516.jpg|3303888], this book is beautifully crafted, weaving the personal and the political into dynamic illustrations. At times a touching, relatable coming of age story, at other times educational, stirring, and inspiring. Also like most quests, I find myself satisfied in the ending I found, but disappointed that it's over. If you have any suggestions, challenges, thoughts, I'd love to hear them.
I finally found it during my first visit to Greenlight Bookstore on a hot afternoon when I felt homesick and directionless. If I believe in any magic, this would be it. Like [b:Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood|9516|Persepolis The Story of a Childhood (Persepolis, #1-2)|Marjane Satrapi|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1425871473s/9516.jpg|3303888], this book is beautifully crafted, weaving the personal and the political into dynamic illustrations. At times a touching, relatable coming of age story, at other times educational, stirring, and inspiring. Also like most quests, I find myself satisfied in the ending I found, but disappointed that it's over. If you have any suggestions, challenges, thoughts, I'd love to hear them.
I am still not a huge fan of the art style, but the story was very excellent.
Part 2 of Satrapi's memoir. Covers her life in Austria and her return to Iran after school. She went through some tough times as she tried to figure out her life and come to terms with the privilege she had of escaping Iran for a bit and studying elsewhere.
I was worried that Persepolis 2 wouldn't live up to the original, but I think it exceeded it. The story is poignant and real and emotional and just really good.
Reading through the reviews for this book I really have to feel sorry for it. It's almost like being the older less attractive sister to a child prodigy, even if it did come second. It's just really hard to live up to the kinds of expectations that people have for you coming off of such an appealing book as Persepolis 1. That said, I would argue that the only real issue with this book is reader expectations. Even on a second read through, I found just as much thought provoking content in this, the "lesser" sister as I did in the original.
As I said in both my review for Persepolis 1 and Embroideries, a big chunk of the reason that people find the first book oh so much more amazing is because it is about a sexually innocent little girl! Even die hard sexists can get behind such a winsome little girl character from time to time because per-pubecent as they are, they are yet "untainted". So the fact that her popularity plummets after her story hits puberty doesn't really surprise me at all.
On top of that, this sequel is also a dramatically different type of story from the first. Rather than experiencing the violence going on in her homeland first-hand, Satrapi has relocated to Europe, where she gets her first real taste of western society and experiences a lot of adolescent angst. This volume is much lighter on both spiritual and political elements, although she does do a lot of political reading here and there.
While this volume felt like it spent a lot less time educating me about the politics and history of her geographic homeland, I felt like I still had a lot to learn from it on a much more personal level.
A) In a culture that sometimes seems to worship at the feet of senseless violence, I find it very interesting to read works by people who actually experience violence.
B) How does one deal with caring about violence that is happening far away from us?
C) How does one deal with being lumped together with radical extremists?
On top of that Satrapi has continued to bring more and more skill and nuance to her work both artistically and in the way it deals with topics. Satrapi, in the tradition of all good memoirs I suppose, allows herself to be extremely vulnerable in this work. Showing a lot of things that don't set her in the best light. Particularly one incident where she scapegoats an innocent bystander to escape the culture police. We get to see Satrapi, warts and all, and I for one feel richer for the experience.
As I said in both my review for Persepolis 1 and Embroideries, a big chunk of the reason that people find the first book oh so much more amazing is because it is about a sexually innocent little girl! Even die hard sexists can get behind such a winsome little girl character from time to time because per-pubecent as they are, they are yet "untainted". So the fact that her popularity plummets after her story hits puberty doesn't really surprise me at all.
On top of that, this sequel is also a dramatically different type of story from the first. Rather than experiencing the violence going on in her homeland first-hand, Satrapi has relocated to Europe, where she gets her first real taste of western society and experiences a lot of adolescent angst. This volume is much lighter on both spiritual and political elements, although she does do a lot of political reading here and there.
While this volume felt like it spent a lot less time educating me about the politics and history of her geographic homeland, I felt like I still had a lot to learn from it on a much more personal level.
A) In a culture that sometimes seems to worship at the feet of senseless violence, I find it very interesting to read works by people who actually experience violence.
B) How does one deal with caring about violence that is happening far away from us?
C) How does one deal with being lumped together with radical extremists?
On top of that Satrapi has continued to bring more and more skill and nuance to her work both artistically and in the way it deals with topics. Satrapi, in the tradition of all good memoirs I suppose, allows herself to be extremely vulnerable in this work. Showing a lot of things that don't set her in the best light. Particularly one incident where she scapegoats an innocent bystander to escape the culture police. We get to see Satrapi, warts and all, and I for one feel richer for the experience.