Students'+opinions+of+the+novel

What did the students think about the novel? Please comment on: - the plot / the story - the format (graphic novel) - the narrator - your overall impressions of the novel

Write in this manner:

=Nora: = - **The plot**: Well, there´s not really a plot, is there? The general idea is for the viewer to get glimpses of her childhood. This works very well for me, though. I find it to be quite interesting and I quite like how she has avoided making it into some cheesy story instead of just telling us what she remembers. - **The format**: It´s a graphic novel, which I like quite a lot. As I consider myself to be somewhat of a visual artist, I am automatically drawn to this, and I´m quite pleased with how it works out. - **The narrator**: First-person-point-of-view. Even though this is appealing, it makes the whole story quite biased. I think she should have put more effort into separating facts from memories. - **Overall impression of the novel**: I liked it a lot, but I wouldn´t put “reading the rest of the story” at the top of my priority list.

Fredrik:
- **The plot**: I enjoyed the story as it gave me as a reader the possibility to see how the author experienced several events that took place in Iran during her upbringing. I found it to be interesting to see how these events came to influence Iran as a society, but also how the events had an influence upon the author as an individual. - **The format**: I found the format to be very comfortable to read as it was both simple to understand due to the way images and text were used together and how one could easily read it several times to examine specific aspects found in the story. - **The narrator**: By writing the story from a first-person view it became quite easy to relate to the main character and to see her thoughts and emotions. It does however emphasise that this is her truth being told and that there could be other perspectives that could be worth examining in order to get a greater understanding of the events around the story. - **Overall impression of the novel**: My overall impression of the novel is quite good. I found it to be well written and very enjoyable. It is not unlikely that I will read Persepolis 2 in the future to see how this story ends.

Botne:
- **The format**: I enjoyed the graphical novel. It also opens up for wider audiences, considering it can be read as an autobiography as well as a story. - **The narrator**: A first person, personal story. Keeping in mind that this is **her** perspective of how her childhood seemed like in retrospect, story well told. How she is able to pop in and out of the story was especially well done, considering she found a way to do this in a graphical novel. - **Overall impression of the novel**: I feel I cannot express this better than one of the quotes on the back of my book: Hugely readable. Read in two sittings, (First, the story of the childhood, followed by the story of the return), should tell you just how interesting I found the story. A personal history of how Iran was like before, but mostly after the Islamic revolution, how change not necessarily is for the good and how growing up in Austria might be tough even though you have the best of starting points, (Hint, hint, read the second part~), I greatly enjoyed the graphical novel as a whole.
 * - The plot**: What pieces of plot there were, I did like. Still, this is simply extracts from a childhood, carefully fit into place in a graphical novel.

Jonatan:
- **The format**: I found that the graphic novel with black and white pictures did not leave any imaginative thinking for the reader. However, it was different a novel this way and was a great experience! Being that the pictures were in black and white, I felt that it was up to the reader to "add colors" and set the mood of the events that took place. - **The narrator**: Being written in first person, I felt that the story became a lot more personal. The author was very visible in the book and shared the memories of her childhood. This can be thought of as being a very subjective way of telling the story, but I liked how she made the story very personal and shared even embarrassing moments from her childhood. - **Overall impression of the novel**: I sure liked it! It was easy to read, yet leaves the reader with something to think about after having read it. I liked learning about the Iranian revolution, and the book motivated me to research more about the revolution, which I thought is very interesting!
 * - The plot**: I really liked this story! I found it is to follow the events that took place and thought it was a great way to share the life of Iranians during the revolution.

Emma:
(I also found the fact that this book made my friend -who's got dyslexia - grow a love for reading, as this book was both deep and grown-up yet simple to read.)
 * - The plot:** It is a great story, telling the story of Iran's history through the eyes of a child. Due to the fact that Satrapi was young at the time of the events she describes - or not born at all, considering the fact that she also retells parts of Iran's history - she does not participate in them like an adult would. Still, I think it's telling a clear story.
 * - The format:** I really enjoyed the format! Reading graphic novels is a new experience to me, and I felt it helped Satrapi convey her message in a clear and distinctive way. Still I felt that the simple illustrations also triggered the reader's imagination and left room for reflection. It evokes emotion!
 * -The narrator:** Being written in first person, from Satrapi's point of wiev, I feel this is a very personal story - like hearing someone telling it to you personally. Obviously it is biased - how could it not be? - but it portrays a clear and in my opinion believable picture of growing up in Iran. The fact that she seems honest, telling both the good and the embarrasing, funny or sad experiences, is one I appreciate greatly - to me it seems heartfelt.
 * -Overall impression of the story:** I enjoyed this novel immensely! Everything about it was "new and fresh" to me, and I really liked the graphic way of expressing her story (though I would have to admit my passion and love for the written word is still standing strong). It was easy to read, but not necessarily easy to understand - it opened for reflections and further studies. Overall I think it's a heartfelt, touching, easy-to-read-harder-to-understand tale, and I will definitely recommend it to others.

**Louise:**

 * - The plot / the story****:** Was there a real plot? I could not find one specific line to follow; most of the events portrayed in the story are only loosely related. However that works completely fine thanks to the format. In fact, since Persepolis basically //is// a collection of various short stories based upon the experience of Marjane as a child, I think it is for the best that it (seemingly) does not have a strict story line to follow.
 * - The format (graphic novel)****:** As mentioned, the format works very well with the story itself. I think the it makes the Persepolis that much more bearable. In the common text format of books this story would lose most of its charm. I would like to see anyone try to write a text describing how Marjane was afraid of having her ears nailed to the wall. To be honest, I do not think this can be done. In Persepolis the graphic novel format expresses the childs thoughts better than any text could.
 * - The narrator:**I think it makes sense for Satrapi to uses her own 10 year old self as the narrator. I got the feeling that I was included in the thoughts of the little girl, there was few interruptions from the woman writing Persepolis years later and it made it easier to forget that the events portrayed happened many years ago.
 * - Your overall impressions of the nove**l**:**I found it quite enjoyable. The art is good; it expresses everything necessary without giving you any expectations, alas, nothing to complain about. However, had Persepolis not been a graphic novel then I do believe that I would have had trouble reading it due to the lack of an overall story line.

=Erik= - **The format**: The graphic novel aspect helped, but not as much as I had expected. If I'd only read the text, I believe most of the story would still be good. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">- **The narrator**: She was good at showing her point of view, but she leaves a couple of loose ends. For example, what happened to her "personal" God? <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">- **Overall impression of the novel**: Good novel, but very normal. By that, I mean that I never got surprised by anything that happened.
 * - The plot**: Cool story bro, needs more dragons and sh*t.