An engaging book in which Bashi compares and contrasts her life as a girl and young woman growing up in Iran with her later experiences in Europe. Not so much a continuous story as a series of musings on different topics and experiences. I enjoyed the way that these discussions are set up and presented: the author repeatedly encounters younger versions of herself who challenge her European-influenced beliefs and, frequently, get into arguments with her. Although I didn't always agree with the conclusions these exchanges ended on, I thought they were presented well — and I liked this twist on the ancient method of stating one's beliefs through a fictitious dialogue.

The artwork is appealing as well, often offering small bits of humor amid the mostly serious subject matter. ( )

A funny yet thought-provoking graphic novel that is not preachy nor pretentious. Graphics made my head spin, and the book is just too wordy for a graphic novel, but Nylon Road is an interesting read.

The gold standard of graphic memoirs for me is Alison Bechdel's Fun Home. Measured against that book, Parsua Bashi's Nylon Road comes out a good, solid, sterling silver.

A more obvious comparison would be with Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, but that's one I can't really make since I put Persepolis down part way through. Satrapi's drawing style was one of the chief reasons for that: I found it blocky and unattractive. Bashi's fluid and varied panels are more to my taste.

In her examination of coming of age in Iran, Bashi succeeds well in conveying the conflicting loyalties that has made the move from her childhood in pre-revolutionary Iran and her adolescence in the Khomeini era through to her adulthood in the West so challenging. On the whole, few of her experiences are ones we would want to share.

The migration story is the immediate focus of Bashi's book. But the glass through which we view a Muslim Iranian woman's journey to greater personal freedom becomes also a mirror in which we are encouraged to take a hard, appraising look at our own culture. It's easy, as we see the daily news clips from the Middle East and the Arab world, to become a bit smug about our freedom of expression, our comparative progress at gender equality, our relative openness to multiculturalism, and the stability of our civil societies. These achievements, however, have come at some cost. For me, the real reason to take a good look at Nylon Road is Bashi's invitation to do some serious self-examination of our own. ( )

Nylon Road tells the story of Parsua Bashi’s childhood and adult experiences in Iran and as an immigrant in Switzerland. The story is told through various encounters with herself, from different points in her life and with very different attitudes and perspectives. I found this device to work well and to provide interesting dialogues, as Parsua discusses issues with a younger version of herself. The contrasts between her peaceful European life and her tumultuous life in Iran are very striking. Bashi manages to tell her story with humour and insight, while still showing the difficult and sad events that happened in her past. A very interesting tale that is beautifully told. ( )

I recently received a review copy of a graphic novel memoir about a young woman growing up in Iran. That wasn't called Persepolis. This was Nylon Road by Parsua Bashi and that Persepolis comparison is all over this book. Persepolis is mentioned in the first line of the book's back cover summary. In one of the later chapters Bashi has drawn herself reading Persepolis. All through my time reading it I was comparing it to Persepolis, and it definitely comes off the weaker.

Bashi tells her story of growing up in Iran and emigrating to Switzerland in the form of a series of conversations with herself from different ages. It's a decent enough setup to compare her views now with views she had at different ages. Speaking of ages, the back cover talks about it being a young woman's struggles but she was 40 when the book was published. The point of view throughout is much more mature than young as she tells us about how she used to think. It's broken into small chapters that aren't very sequential. More of a collection of ruminations. Selah.

Art-wise, there's not a lot exciting going on. She uses a similar simple style to Satrapi's work in Persepolis, which is fine, but doesn't help avoid comparisons between the two.

I wasn't a huge fan of the book. Maybe if Persepolis isn't available and you need a memoir about a woman growing up in Iran this would be fine. It would also work very well as a secondary source in an essay about the graphic memoir form (in a "in books like Persepolis and Nylon Road..." kind of way). ( )