Perception of Persepolis (for real this time)

I absolutely love The Complete Persepolis!! I would have never seen this in Barnes & Noble and picked it up, so I am so excited to be reading the second half now! Her silly banter and funny thought bubbles really added a punch to this novel. I think choosing to write her story in this comic strip conglomerate opened up her audience as well as created a great medium for expressing herself. Instead of saying what she was thinking, which would be boring and constrictive in normal text, she uses the pictures to display everything. Right off the bat the reader is thrown into her world, where rules are strongly enforced and her parents were out n the street daily trying to reconcile with the leaders and riot for their rights. However, Satrapi was never ashamed of who she was, or where her family originated. She was happy living in the unrest, learning what she could, and helping in any way possible.

Marjane's strength is what got her out of the country onto bigger, presumed by her parents; more safe (and less safe… drugs to name one) things. What her parents did by protecting her was the right thing to do, yet she never viewed it the same way. The funniest portion of this text included her experiences in the convent with the Nun that yelled her for eating pasta out of the pot. The Nun proceeds to stereotype her entire culture and race and say she had no intelligence, due to her Iranian-ness. Marjane continued to say that she must have been a prostitute before becoming a Nun. The idea that a Nun would be so rude and racist to say that is pretty unbelievable. Also, when she was being harassed on the street for wearing tight jeans and sneakers by those nuns, I was appalled! It was maddening to "see" that happen, and I wondered if they harassed her for the color of her skin or the features of her face. It was extremely disrespectful for the teacher to shut down her idea of becoming a prophet of God one day too.

All in all, I love this book, and I can’t wait to finish it. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to see political unrest and racism comes alive with this book!!