My review of this book can be found on my YouTube Vlog at:

https://youtu.be/NNKIFf8siHI

Enjoy! ( )

Along the story's winding path it was not obvious how the heroine would find her way. She had to overcome loneliness and poverty in a foreign country; the clutch of the fundamentalist regime in her home country. Then came numerous dissapointments, dead ends and losses. How did she not give up completely? She had a rebelious resolve but that was often shaken and only gave her grief at times. She had her parents but sometimes they were far away or couldn't really help her. She didn't really have stable friends. It seems she had nothing constant in her life, nothing that permeated from childhood into adulthood that i could pinpoint as the reason she overcame all the trouble.
While reading this comics i was rooting for her while having no answers to her problems. It's weird because usually when i read fiction i feel like i know the solution that i'd like to shout at the hero. But not here. Here the heroine taught me how to deal with all this life stuff. Cool. ( )

I really enjoyed both of these books and found myself much more invested in the character and story than I ever would have thought I could be in a graphic novel. ( )

Storia di un ritorno riprende a raccontare della vita di Marjane Satrapi proprio dove Storia di un'infanzia si era interrotto. Vediamo quindi Marjane alle prese con la sua (complicata) vita fuori dell'Iran.

Se Storia di un'infanzia è stata una storia di resistenza e silente ribellione al regime integralista, Storia di un ritorno è la storia di molte perdite, che Marjane non si aspettava di dover affrontare nella laica e liberale Europa. A volte le aspettative son proprio delle grandi stronze...

Così, insieme alla superficialità e alla saccenteria, all'integralismo religioso fuori dall'Iran e alla vita da esule, passerà anche attraverso esperienze comuni a molte adolescenti: sesso, droga, amore, amicizie più o meno strampalate e cambiamenti fisici che sembrano non volgere al meglio (le strisce che ne parlano m'hanno fatto morire dal ridere!).

Mi è piaciuto tantissimo lo stile della Satrapi, sempre divertente e pungente nei confronti di ciò che non reputa giusto (la reazione alle offese della suora... impagabile!). Sono molto contenta che Emma Watson abbia scelto Persepolis per la lettura collettiva di giugno di Our Shared Shelf, facendomi finalmente decidere a leggerlo. Quest'anno si sta rivelando pieno di scoperte interessanti sul fronte graphic novel e saggi: bene, bene, bene! ( )

Satrapi's strength is the ability to write a book that is about her life that is meaningful in the context of the historic events occurring in Iran during her lifetime, but also about her inner narrative. There's a contrast between the parts that are nearly unimaginable for the average American -- a co-worker who is beaten by the police for a misinterpreted cartoon, worrying about holding hands, two men beaten for driving in a car together, inability to show one's hair and so forth -- and the feelings that are universal: the desire for belonging, fear of isolation and a spectrum of normal teenage emotions.

I found the parts set in Vienna less interesting -- I think the compelling nature of the narrative derives in part from Sartapi's self-insight either at the time or in retrospect, and while in Vienna it mostly feels like she wasn't herself. There's a detachment and a lack of emotionality that drives the parts of the narrative set in Iran. Additionally, the strongest parts of the book were when Sartapi had conflict between her mother, father and grandmother -- these relatives are so close to her and so fundamental to her being that the conflicts had a clear tension. Without these supporting characters in the narrative the stakes seemed much lower.

Satrapi's black and white illustrations are stark and sometimes simplistic, which I think allows the underlying narrative to shine through, although I frequently had trouble distinguishing between characters, especially men. ( )