I snuck an extra book in the other night. Michael Kindness, our esteemed Random House rep, gave me a copy of the second volume Marjane Satrapi’s wonderfully observant memoirs Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return. Satrapi wrote her autobiography in graphic novel form, which sounds strange at first, but it really works for her story. She grew up in Tehran, Iran during the Islamic revolution. If you are like me (i.e. American), you know very little about Iran or the revolution. Satrapi was nine when fundamentalist rebels overthrew the Shah. At first her radical parents are excited but they soon realize that a new totalitarian regime is taking the Shah’s place, imposing strict religious laws on the people. Satrapi’s story takes us through the war with Iraq and her parents’ struggle to educate their daughter in a rigorously religious society. Persepolis ends when she is sent by her parents to live in Austria and that is where the next book picks up. Persepolis 2 picks up Satrapi living in Vienna and her teenage years. Living with strangers exiled from her parents, she struggles to live a normal life. Four years later, after ending up on the streets, she returns to her family in Tehran, where we see her try to carve out a life amidst the repression and chauvinism in Tehran. You can read these books in one sitting easily, but they are by no means “light” reads. Tehran sounds like an difficult place to live, with Guardians waiting to check you for lipstick or an exposed wrist. The pressure seems a lot to bear. But the youth that Satrapi depicts seem like any teenagers you might meet here–rebellious, angst-ridden, etc. She went through a punk phase too I might add. I really liked the second volume, though maybe not quite as much as the first. But I think that the first volume was new and exciting to me so by the time I read the second, the newness had worn off a bit. But don’t let this discourage anyone from reading it. It is fabulous. (oh and due out in August)