A review by allygriggles
The Republic of Imagination: America in Three Books by Azar Nafisi

3.0

This book was kind of just okay. I think the introduction was my favorite part, and it got me really fired up about literature. I loved the idea of all American literature having something in common that no other culture's literature has, even when coming from very different authors. Admittedly, I haven't read "Reading Lolita" in years, but I remember it being much, much better than "Republic of Imagination." The memoir segments after the first part of the book were mostly boring. They were about Americans she had gone to college with and where they were now, none of which seemed to have very much to do with the literature she was discussing. The memoirs in "Reading Lolita" really told a story of why literature was important; the memoirs here were random and did little to break up the heavy academic discussions of the three books. And then the epilogue was really disappointing: it felt like she was trying to tack on more of the same about a book that she had rejected reluctantly. And then she went on a rant about how trigger warnings were a form of censorship, which made it sound like she really doesn't understand what a trigger warning is. Anyway, don't go into this expecting it to be as awesome as "Reading Lolita."