At the beginning of the book, Marji was only 10 years old. She attended a French Secular School, so she wasn't used to being religious. When all the bilingual schools were closed down, she started to think a little more about her religion. She even thought she was the last prophet! Every night she had meetings with God, and read comics about the worldly affairs. She even read about Marxism and Leninism. She was surprised how much Marx looked like God. Her parents would go out demonstrating once in a while. Marji often had the urge to go and demonstrate. After all, she was a rebellious young Iranian girl.

Her Dad often used to tell her stories about early days in the Revolution. The revolution started when a young illiterate soldier named Reza wanted to follow Gandhi and Ataturk and create a republic. But British Officials tricked him into giving them the oil and creating another monarchy. Naturally, his son, the Shah, succeeded him. The emperor that was overthrown by Reza was Marji's grandpa's father. However, because Marji's grandfather was educated, he was appointed Prime Minister. He and his colleagues argued that it was not Reza Shah Pahlavi, but the Queen of England that was the leader of Iran. Therefore, Grandpa became a communist. Of course, he was sent to jail. Marji was fascinated by these stories, and she would often go tell her friends about them. It helped her get a feel for what was really going on. She could tell her friends how her family was more involved in the revolution than others!

After school the next day, Marji met her grandmother again after a long time. Her grandmother told her how life had been during the Shah's regime for “heir presumptive” to the Qajar throne. The Shah took everything from them and they lived in poverty. Her mother even had to spray scents to make it seem like she was cooking something good.

The Satrapis had a maid named Mehri. Mehri had been living with them since Marji was born. They had been good “siblings”, and got along. One day when Marji's parents went to demonstrate, Mehri and Marji went also. They both got into a lot of trouble. After all of this demonstrating, the Shah tried to be more democratic, but being unable to do so, he was taken out of power.

Most of the political prisoners taken in the Shah's reign were released again. Marji's family knew two of them: Siamak Jari and Mohsen Shakiba. They talked about how life was like in the prisons. Another man named Ahmadi never made it out of jail because he was a member of the Guerillas.

Marji's Uncle Anoosh was also a political prisoner. He told Marji about his adventurous times. He left from his father's, who was also Ebi's father, house to join his uncle because his father was loyal to the Shah. When he found out that the Shah's men were after his uncle, he went back to his parents' house, but he knew that he wouldn't be safe there, so he went to Russia. He had become a student in the U.S.S.R. where is studied Marxism-Leninism, or Dialect Materialism. When he decided to return home because of a divorce, he came in disguise, where the Police found him soon and put him into jail.

One day, after school, Anoosh was supposed to pick up Marji, but he didn't because he had been sent to jail by the Fundamentalists, the new political party in power. It was these Fundamentalists who started the Islamic Revolution. Marji went to meet him, where Anoosh said how much he loved her. Mohsen Shakiba was drowned in his own tub, so it wasn't an accident; it was murder - probably by the fundamentalists. The Fundamentalists went to Siamak Jari's house, and since he wasn't there, his sister was killed instead. Siamak's family escaped Iran hiding within a flock of sheep. The next day, Marji found out that Anoosh had been executed. She was in tears. God came to meet her - for the last time. Marji pushed her friend, God, out of her life that day.

A few years later, when Marji was twelve, a war was going on between Iran and Iraq. The Iraqis were bombing Tehran, and it had been ages since any good news had been heard. Then one day the radio buzzed with excitement that Iranian pilots had bombed Baghdad. The bad news was that at least half of them hadn't returned. The Fundamentalists were still in power, and women were forced to wear the veil. At school, Marji and her friends would often make fun of the teacher because she supported the Islamic Regime. Parties, alcohol and cigarettes were still banned, but the Satrapis still had them every Thursday. One night, after a party, Ebi was still very drunk, and he was stopped by a soldier. He called home and told them to dump the alcohol. Unfortunately, when he got home, they had already tossed it out, and bribery was all that was needed to get rid of the soldier. Going to the U.S. was banned because the Fundamentalists had taken control of the Iranian Embassy. Universities were closed for two years. Marji's dreams were torn apart with these changes. She knew that she had to grow up, so she tried her first cigarette. It was horrible, but she knew it wasn't the time to give up, so she smoked on, until she declared herself an adult by “kissing her childhood goodbye”.

Her parents went on holiday to Turkey for some time together. They smuggled posters, coins, and jackets into Iran for Marji. She was very happy. She went down to buy some illegal -in Iran- tapes of the latest western music. On her way back she was stopped by some women from the Guardians of the Revolution, the Women's Branch. They saw Marji wearing sneakers and a jacket with Michael Jackson on it. They were planning on taking her down to the committee, but she lied and pleaded to be set free so she was. She often used to go to buy clothes. Now that she was a teenager, she was in the latest fashion. Her mother was surprised how much things were costing. The currency value had dropped so much, that Marji's mother was uneasy giving Marji the money, because it was so much. One day when she was buying something, she heard on the radio that the neighborhood that Marji lived in had been bombed. She ran home and found out that it was the neighbors' house that had been bombed. Marji's mother's idea of keeping tape on the window worked. Even though a bomb had blasted, breaking all the windows, there was no glass pieces in the house!

At school, Marji and her friends would continually wear effervescent jewelry, an obvious no-no in Iranian society. One day her teacher decided that she'd had enough. She said that if she saw Marji wearing jewelry again, she would forcefully take it from her. The next day, Marji was wearing the same thing, and when the teacher asked to see it, they got into a catfight in which Marji hit the teacher. Of course, she was expelled. At her new Islamic school, she regularly created arguments around subjects of the Islamic Revolution. For example, when the teacher said that there were no political prisoners in Iran during the time of the Islamic Regime, she countered by saying that her uncle, Anoosh, had been jailed in the Shah's regime, but executed under the Fundamentalists of the Islamic Regime. Marji's political rebelliousness could not have gone on much longer, for she would have been killed by the Fundamentalists.

Her parents decided to send her to Vienna. It was the only way her rebellious spirit would be safe from the Fundamentalists. She could also continue her French education that she stopped four years earlier. With many tears, Marji went to the airport with the thought that her parents would come to Vienna sooner or later. It was kind of obvious that they would never come. So she was off, to escape the Fundamentalists, and to continue her education.

My favorite character from Persepolis is probably Marji. The first reason that I like Marji is because she is the only character that is really identified, as it is the author. I really like her rebellious spirit because I myself am not too fond of the Islamic Regime. She knew she wasn't supposed to wear jewelry. She knew she wasn't safe walking around with “punk” shoes. But she did these things anyways, and that is why I liked her. She is important to the story because the world of Persepolis is in her perspective.

Persepolis was a great book. It was filled with Iranian Culture and with rich details about the Islamic Regime and the Shah's regime. What I liked the most was the part with Uncle Anoosh coming and talking about his times in the U.S.S.R. I would recommend it to all readers who could enjoy a comic. That's how I enjoyed it at least. Readers who like history or tales of life in the past would love this book. There is a sequel to this book called Persepolis 2, and another book called The Complete Persepolis, which includes both episodes. That book was made into a movie, which contains all the features of both books. It has been released in French, with all the original cartooning by Marjane Satrapi in it. It has English subtitles, but I still can't wait for the English version, so that I can enjoy it too. It's not that I can't enjoy it in French; it's just that I could understand it better in English. After all, almost every sentence has a deep meaning to it. All in all, I really enjoyed the book. Many people say that comics are for children, but this one had deep meaning to it, so I liked it very much. I can't wait to read Persepolis 2, and then watch the movie.

The quantity and, in some instances, the objective quality of information upon which Satrapi draws is further restricted by the fact that she writes only of personal experiences from her early teenage years and before. Perhaps more interested in Iron Maiden than the Iron Curtain at the time, Satrapi is correspondingly light on historical fact. Additionally, Satrapi's place in a family with obvious historical bias provides additional cause for caution. As a great-granddaughter in the ex-royal family and daughter of Marxist parents, Satrapi's description of the Shah's ascent to power ascribes no blame to anyone of genetic relation, concentrating primarily instead on a comical depiction of the Englishmen involved as stereotypically evil.

Paradoxically, however, the account's distinctive nature is also its greatest strength. The brevity of her captions allows Satrapi to distill what others might take paragraphs to express into single compelling sentence or phrase. Instead of writing reams to attack the fundamentalist regime's phony reports, she simply writes: “Every day they tell us that we've destroyed ten planes and five tanks. If you start from the beginning of the war, that makes six thousand planes and three thousand tanks destroyed. Even the Americans don't have an army this big.” Thus, Satrapi effectively discounts the regime's credibility with a single reference to a schoolyard conversation.

Similarly, Satrapi's non-professional style is entirely appropriate for her account due to the simple reason that the human race is not primarily composed of historians. Nor, it should also be noted, are historians the only readers of history. And most importantly, they are certainly not usually the prime actors or eye-witnesses to history as it happens. It is important for this very reason to study not only the in-depth analyses of historical experts on the period, but also the primary perspectives of those less historically inclined among us. Satrapi brings this to us, successfully communicating common attitudes of complex historical phenomena with explanations such as, “The more he tried democracy, the more his statues were torn down.” Through her simplicity of expression, Satrapi captures the essence of a prevailing and recurring theme in this account: the Everyman's perspective.

As important as the Everyman's perspective is the childhood perspective. Easily imprinted upon and often cultural barometers - even caricatures - of those around them, young children are very useful indicators of the prevailing attitudes of the time. Satrapi, careful to point out the irony of her patriotism, portrays her childhood perspective of the war with the caption, “The second invasion in 1400 years! My Blood was boiling. I was ready to defend my country against these Arabs who kept attacking us.” If historians can understand why the children of a region think in one way or another, they are-may be much closer to understanding the populous as a whole.

Satrapi's account, though clearly lacking in historical breadth, is rich in historical insight. It may provide scant detail and little of the background concerning the hundred-and-forty-aircraft attack on Baghdad, it may fail to offer a balanced, nuanced analysis of the Shah's rise to power, but what it does give the reader is a vivid, valuable impression of the emotional atmosphere, cultural attitudes, and social facets at the time. However unimportant it may seem to the conventional historian, Satrapi's knowledge of Iron Maiden - and of the countless other cultural phenomena in Persepolis - connects directly to my own life and opens a fascinating window onto hers. Her writing's accessibility transforms this account's apparent shortcomings into strengths.