Review:: Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi

Title: The Complete Persepolis

Author: Marjane Satrapi

Format: Paperback

Rating: ★★★★☆

This month, my bookclub on HabitRPG (soon to be remaned Habitica) voted on reading Persepolis. If you want to check out our further discussion on it, join Habit, check out the guild "Legendary Bookclub of Habitica" and you'll find a link to our Goodreads group. Anyway, now that that's covered, my review:

Persepolis was almost everything I ever wanted from it. And it would have been, if it had only quit whilst ahead. Instead, there was a point where it lost its footing for a bit. While that's sometimes not enough to knock off a star, in this case it was... partially because of how strong the book is at the start.

It's like that problem where the first in a series (of anything) is really, really good. When the sequel is being judged, it's not being judged on its own. It's being judged in relation to the first in the series. And so often, folks feel that it falls flat.

I think Persepolis sort of felt the same problem.

Persepolis #1 was really strong; the story of a young girl growing up during war and increased intolerance, parented by revolutionaries and rebels. It honestly hurt, from time to time. It was raw, real, and had serious impact. But as Marjane grows older, it's a bit more difficult to keep interested. She starts dealing with the things many teenagers deal with, which is far less riveting.

Which makes me feel kind of gross because this is biographical, and it's not like she can help her childhood being a lot more terrifying and worse than her teenager-hood in Austria or her adulthood with less war. Like some other books I've read, I feel like it might have benefited from reading over time, rather than reading it all at once.

Regardless, though, it was a fantastic book, even though I felt like it lost some momentum towards the end. I would highly suggest that everyone reads it. Yup. Everyone.