Bingo Chart Reading Challenge: Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

This was my pick for the challenge of reading a graphic novel this year. I’ve seen it on Youtube, specifically on Jean Bookishthoughts’ channel and I thought it sounded interesting. 

It details the author’s life growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She tells of the demonstrations, the imprisonment of family members and friends and the fear of not only the war with Iraq, but the country’s own government. 

The art is pretty cartoonish and all done in black and white. This lends a starkness to the story that for the most part suits it, but it does take a little getting used to. A few times I had trouble discerning between the different people, as the cartoony art style was quite basic and not very detailed. 

The story was interesting, but a little confusing at times, simply because very complicated political matters had to be boiled down to a few sentences, and since I don’t know a lot about the history and politics of the region, it was a bit hard to follow sometimes. But the main point comes across, and it is interesting to see it through the eyes of a child. 

I really don’t know if graphic novels are my type of format. I just can’t seem to really connect with the story when it is told mainly in pictures in stead of words. I have tried a few times now, with different graphic novels, and none of them seem to make much of an impression. I am currently reading the second part of this series, but my library doesn’t have the rest (3 and 4), and I don’t think I will go out of my way to obtain them. 

I gave this 3 stars out of 5 on Goodreads. If you like reading graphic novels I definitely think you should check it out.