58. The Complete Persepolis

Book 58: The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (B+)

I really didn't like Persepolis. The reason it gets a B+, however, is because of its innovative use of the graphic novel style to tell a memoir set during the revolution of Iran. Satrapi recounts her childhood and adolescence in the tumultuous Iran when women began to have to wear the veil and the Islamic Revolution heated up. The novel also tells of her time in Austria as an Iranian living in the Western world and how much of an outcast she was, particularly with never having found diaspora (I learned that word in class yesterday!).

The final novel, originally split into two separate books, is told in black and white, stark comics that really show the harsh differences between their culture and ours. I did have some problems with the comics, though, because there was so much that needed to be said. Most of the frames were of a hooded Satrapi saying a long dialogue of political jargon that couldn't be explained as properly as it could have been in a standard novel.
I found Satrapi's voice, especially as a child, to just be annoying. She didn't captivate me. While she was brutally honest which was needed for her story, there was also a kind of deattachment. It was like because she was writing in a graphic novel setting that she didn't know how to express herself well enough in the what was going on around her.
Also, the ending... sucked!! One of the worst endings I've ever read... right up there with Vulpes the Red Fox and My Side of the Mountain. It was abrupt, unexpected, and left a lot of loose ends. I was extremely disappointed and confused. I understand that a memoir isn't an autobiography. It isn't meant to explain her entire life, but seriously... what was that????