My review of this book can be found on my YouTube Vlog at:

https://youtu.be/NNKIFf8siHI

Enjoy! ( )

Along the story's winding path it was not obvious how the heroine would find her way. She had to overcome loneliness and poverty in a foreign country; the clutch of the fundamentalist regime in her home country. Then came numerous dissapointments, dead ends and losses. How did she not give up completely? She had a rebelious resolve but that was often shaken and only gave her grief at times. She had her parents but sometimes they were far away or couldn't really help her. She didn't really have stable friends. It seems she had nothing constant in her life, nothing that permeated from childhood into adulthood that i could pinpoint as the reason she overcame all the trouble.
While reading this comics i was rooting for her while having no answers to her problems. It's weird because usually when i read fiction i feel like i know the solution that i'd like to shout at the hero. But not here. Here the heroine taught me how to deal with all this life stuff. Cool. ( )

When I read a memoir like this, I feel a sense of gratitude towards the author. It's easy enough to share your triumphs. It's not even that difficult to share your foibles. But to actually share your mistakes, the things that made you feel shame, that is an act of courage. Even to admit to such things to an individual is hard. How much more difficult to tell the world?

I not only have a greater insight into Iranian culture in the early 90s but feel more connected with my own humanity. ( )

I really enjoyed both of these books and found myself much more invested in the character and story than I ever would have thought I could be in a graphic novel. ( )

Satrapi's strength is the ability to write a book that is about her life that is meaningful in the context of the historic events occurring in Iran during her lifetime, but also about her inner narrative. There's a contrast between the parts that are nearly unimaginable for the average American -- a co-worker who is beaten by the police for a misinterpreted cartoon, worrying about holding hands, two men beaten for driving in a car together, inability to show one's hair and so forth -- and the feelings that are universal: the desire for belonging, fear of isolation and a spectrum of normal teenage emotions.

I found the parts set in Vienna less interesting -- I think the compelling nature of the narrative derives in part from Sartapi's self-insight either at the time or in retrospect, and while in Vienna it mostly feels like she wasn't herself. There's a detachment and a lack of emotionality that drives the parts of the narrative set in Iran. Additionally, the strongest parts of the book were when Sartapi had conflict between her mother, father and grandmother -- these relatives are so close to her and so fundamental to her being that the conflicts had a clear tension. Without these supporting characters in the narrative the stakes seemed much lower.

Satrapi's black and white illustrations are stark and sometimes simplistic, which I think allows the underlying narrative to shine through, although I frequently had trouble distinguishing between characters, especially men. ( )