Book Review for Persepolis

The thesis of this book is to show what life was like growing up during the Iranian Revolution for Marjane Satrapi. The author did a good job of this because the reader gets a good picture of what went on during this time.

The book starts off when she is about five years old. She is a typical little girl, with dreams and ideas of little kids. When the Shah is overthrown, her country changes. Her family supports the change but when they realize what life will actually be like, their views change. Marjane strongly opposes the new government so her parents send her to Austria to finish her education in a safer place. She tries her best to make them proud and succeed but falls into drugs and alcohol and ends up homeless, so she returns home. She lives back in Iran for four years and gets married and divorced. At the end of the book, she leaves again and her mom forbids her from coming back.

The strengths of the book are that it cathces the interest of readers because it is a graphic novel and easy to read. It gives a good look into what life was like in Iran.

Some weaknesses are that some of the pictures had Farsi writing and if you don't know the language, you miss out. It also could have had more of an introduction in the front to explain things a little more.

Overall I liked the book and if you can have an open mind when reading it I would recommend it. This book can change your view on Muslims and Middle Easterners. You realize that they are people too and only a few of them are extreme and violent and it isn't fair to the rest of them to all have that stereotype.

These three women all have many things in common. All three of these women are working for the "greater good". They all live in the Middle East. They are all women. They work to help others by resisting their governments and doing what is right as opposed to what the corrupt governments make them do. Marjane does not support the new Iranian government after the revolution. As a consequence she had to flee her country and live in Paris to escape her government. Twakkul won a Nobel Peace prize and started the Arab Spring in her country. And Malala at such a young age has affected the whole world and turned the attention of millions on the Taliban and the world is realizing that they are wrong in what they do, like not letting girls get an education and shooting them in the head when they resist. The theme of these three women is working for the greater good and standing up for what is right, even when you might suffer severe consequences, like being forced out of your country or shot at just for attending school. I think that its very unfortunate when people in our country gripe about "not having enough rights" when they have no idea how people in other countries have to live. I think they should go live over there for a while and then come back and say we don't have enough rights in America. These three women are all working for the greater good and if more people would be like them, groups like the Taliban would not exist.

I think its sometimes okay to just leave it alone and choose to ignore it rather than to help out and you can still have a clean conscious. But it depends on the person and what is being done. But if it is really bad then you probably should say something to someone in authority that is bigger than the person causing the problem, if its possible. And if you can stop what is going on on your own, then you should. But only Doc on his own wasn't able to stop apatheid so its okay that he just ignored it. And when Klikop kicked Giel Peet in the face and made him lick up the blood, there was nothing that Peekay could have done to stop it from happening so I think it was okay for him to not participate and still have a clean conscious. And even though he probably could have reported it to the kommandant, it wouldn't have mattered anyway because he didn't like blacks either. So I think that sometimes you can leave things alone and not participate in it and still be able to have a clean conscious.

A big thing that changed my life was the trip that I went on this summer to the Philippines. I got to spend two weeks there and learned many things about people in the Philippines. The way of life over there is so much different than mine. The trip reminded me not to take things for granted and be thankful for what I have. I made new friends there and even learned a few words of their language. The trip made a big impact on my life, and I'll always be thankful that I was able to go on it.

When we study literature from other countries we learn more about the culture of people. What we think is right might not be in the eyes of other people. So when we read literature from other countries we get to see a new point of view than our own. I don't know what kinds of questions I'll ask when I read my book becuse I haven't started it yet.