192 replies to this topic

[Mara=^.^=]

Wow. Zodiac sounds like the type of book someone writes to make FUN of the love triangle overkill in YA fiction

 

~*Mara*~ = ^.^ =

[SweeneyxxTodd]

Except it's played painfully straight.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard (link to Goodreads page)

 

This book was an absolute pleasure to read.  I was intrigued right from the start and never lost that interest. A strictly enforced caste system; split between Silvers with their magical abilities and Reds, regular humans enslaved and oppressed because of their lack of magic; a Red who inexplicably has these powers herself and must lie about her identity and put on a Silver face; rebellions; intricate webs of lies and questionable loyalties. There are so many different layers to this book and so many different things to love about it that I had to give myself a day to fully process the book before I wrote my review. I can only hope I manage to make this review even halfway reflect the quality of this book.

 

To start out with, the cover. Look at it. Just look at that cover and tell me it doesn't make you want to pick it up and read the synopsis. This book is one of the many examples of a cover that did its job well: catch eyes and draw attention to the words inside.

 

Secondly, the pacing of this book was spot-on. It was tight and tense and kept me turning pages. The only reason I didn't finish this in one setting is because I wanted to absorb everything about this book so I didn't miss anything important. Tension and suspense rose steadily without overwhelming the characters, and the timespan was very believable for the amount of action packed into it.

 

Third, let's have a look at the characters. They're all so layered and intricate. Everybody has something more to offer than it seems at first glance. Even the antagonistic characters like Evangeline and Elara were interesting because despite their ferocity, you could understand their motivations and could see that they fiercely loved their families. In fact, the familial love was one of my favorite parts of this book: Mare feels overshadowed by her younger sister, Gisa, whose talents are more valued in their society and who will be the one to save their family from conscription. But despite those feelings of jelousy and inadequacy, Mare loves her sister and will do anything to protect her. Gisa and Mare like each other, and no sour feelings can get in the way of their sibling relationship. It's not often in fiction that I see sibling relationships as nuanced and realistically portrayed as Gisa and Mare's, and it really was a pleasant surprise to read about it.

 

I do, however, wish that there were more female characters portrayed positively in this book. I understand that outside of Mare's family and the Scarlet Guard, the characters were Silver nobels and generally raised to be mean and catty to each other, but it would have been nice to see more like Colonel Macanthos, who was down to earth and a decent person.

 

I did also predict the big twist at the end about two-thirds of the way through the book, but it was still satisfying to see. It made sense and it cut my heart in half all the same.

 

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to a lot of different kinds of readers: fans of YA dystopia, fantasy, elemental magic, even just YA in general. If you have even just a little bit of interest in the book, read it. You will not regret it.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Amulet, volume 4: The Last Council by Kazu Kibuishi
Link to book one: Amulet, volume 1: The Stonekeeper

 

Not much to say without giving spoilers for the series.

 

Best volume in the series so far, in my opinion. The story is really starting to pick up speed and the stakes are steadily rising! Our cast of characters is getting a bit large, though, and most of them haven't been developed too thoroughly yet. I hope we get to see more of that in the next few volumes. I'm really excited to read the rest and get caught up with this series.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Amulet, volume 5: Prince of the Elves by Kazu Kibuishi

 

 

This volume was a bit more confusing than the previous ones, especially once we dove into the void and got a look through Prince Trellis' memories. Pretty much everything I thought I knew about him and Luger got turned around and I'm not sure I understand the current state of things anymore.

 

On the other hand, the concept of the void was really cool and it upped the stakes a bit in a different way than the main conflict does. All in all, really enjoyable to read and a good installment in the series, but it could have been much clearer about what was going on.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

I'm only 11 books behind schedule now, according to Goodreads! But it's counting the bit of Otoyomegatari that I read in June, which I'm not counting because I'm reading it online and it's really unclear exactly what volume I left off in the last time I read any of it. Also I'm not reviewing those.

 

I really need to get on my game and do some reading. Maybe I'll stock up on graphic novels to catch up There are six more in the Flight series I could read.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Amulet, Volume 6: Escape From Lucien by Kazu Kibuishi

 

 

As much as I loved the plot threads we were introduced to in this book, I have to admit that I'm starting to get really confused by this series. The timeline doesn't really make that much sense and I feel like I missed something important, which isn't a good thing--especially since I read the bulk of this series in less than a month. If I had been reading these more spaced out, like those who began it when the first volume was new and had to wait, I wouldn't have noticed this timeline issue. But it's starting to become a pretty big problem.

 

The way the books are paced makes it seem like all these events take place in a few weeks, but late in this sixth book we find out it's already been several months. There hasn't been any context to imply that this is the actual passage of time. Weather hasn't changed. The character development hasn't progressed as far as it should in months of time.

 

I'm a bit torn as to whether I think shorter or longer volumes would fix this problem. We'd get more development of plots and characters with more pages, but also if each volume simply had fewer elements to them. Either option would work, really. I'm still interested in seeing where this series goes, because I really do enjoy it. It's lots of fun and the artwork is simply gorgeous. But it's problematic if your readers can't keep the timeline straight. And I'm an adult. I'm not so sure the middle grade audience these books are targeted at would have any easier of a time understanding the timeline than I do--but then, maybe they wouldn't notice the discrepancies as much. I don't know. I haven't interacted with someone that age in a long time.

 

 

My final bit of critique for this particular book is this: It ended too late.

 

Spoiler

Personally, I think ending the volume at the part when Riva watches the elf ship plummet to the ground and thinks about Father Charles' prophecy as Trellis emerges from the wreckage would have had a much stronger impact than where we actually ended. We wouldn't have known the fate of Navin, Pil, and Aly, and would have been uncertain about the Stonekeepers, though confident in their safety.

 

It really felt like everything after that moment was tacked on just so that we would know that everybody was safe. It kind of negated the whole "the stakes, for both Emily and Navin, are higher than ever" that the backcopy blurb promised us.

 

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

The Evolution of Mara Dyer, by Michelle Hodkin

 

I made the mistake of waiting seven months between reading Unbecoming and reading this. Because in those seven months, I completely forgot how engrossing these books really are. I loved Unbecoming and plowed through it very quickly--only couple of days. I was through with this in only two as well. Both would have taken half as long if I'd been reading physical copies instead of listening to the Audible editions. But although I wish I could have gone through these more quickly, because I was constantly on edge waiting for what would happen next, I am absolutely certain that the audiobooks were the way to go with these. Christy Romano embodies Mara's voice so fully and so completely that I feel like I'm really listening to Mara tell me her story, instead of just having someone read it to me. Her delivery is spot-on, emotions conveyed so fittingly, that I am even more enthralled than if I were just hearing this book in my head.

 

This book confused me so much more than the first one, and I loved every minute of it. The subtly creepy atmosphere of The Unbecoming was turned up to eleven in this one and it was absolutely thrilling. Each little thing that happened hightened the tension and the fear, and all along the way I became absolutely convinced that Mara really was going insane, rather than just experiencing real supernatural events. In the first book, I believed everything Mara said. But now, after having finished the second book, I can't decide which side I'm on. Nothing makes sense, but in a way it feels like it should because there is a thread of logic connecting all the bizarre events together coherently. It's a rare moment when I enjoy being confused by what I'm reading, but I'm hoping that The Retribution kicks everything into high gear and confuses the shit out of me. I am really looking forward to the last book. This trilogy is quickly taking a spot in my favorite series list (which currently only houses four others--Harry Potter, Anna Dressed in Blood, The Lunar Chronicles, and The Reckoners). I have faith that the last installment will keep it in that list of favorites.

 

Onto my complaints (I have a couple, despite the five-star rating): Why couldn't Jamie have felt this important to the plot in the first book? I was actually really surprised to see him at Horizons, because all I could remember about him from The Unbecoming was that he was a token minority of multiple types, and he was completely extraneous to the plot. But now he's suddenly important? I love that he is--he's a really enjoyable character to have around, and it's why I had such mixed feelings about him in the first place--but I can't help but feel cheated. Even if he needed to leave the scene for plot reasons, he didn't make enough of an impact before that happened for him to feel necessary at all. Nothing about him suggested that he'd become important. Which is why, although I love him returning and having more of a purpose, I feel like something about his character arc is lacking. He should have been built up more in the first book, so that his removal from the narrative had more impact, as well as his return, and the discoveries we make near the end of this book would be more satisfying.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

 

(I actually finished this before even starting The Evolution of Mara Dyer, but I forgot to write a review until today)

 

Before anything else, let's take a second to appreciate how freaking gorgeous that cover is.

 

Done? Okay. Let's get started, then.

 

The first part of this book completely captivated me. I was so intrigued by Juliette--a teenage girl whose touch is lethal, shut up in an asylum like a lunatic in order to keep her away from others. In that time, and throughout her entire life devoid of love and affection, she seemed to become as insane as the people locking her up in the asylum said she was. And it was fascinating.

But this book really didn't turn out the way I was expecting. In both good and bad ways. I loved the symbolism of the white bird with a crown of gold feathers atop its head--and I hope it stays for the rest of the trilogy and is fully satisfying in the end. It was beautiful--just like Tahereh Mafi's writing style. Lyrical and flowing. Unfortunately, that style did border on purple prose now and then, but I was able to excuse it because the main character has so little experience interacting properly with other people that it made sense she'd come up with flowery ways to describe everything. My other complaint is the romance. Adam is a saint with how kind and dedicated he is, but it seemed like once he was introduced, the plot took a bit of a backseat to describing how angelic he looks and how he and Juliette have been secretly in love with each other since childhood and still love each other. The societal conflict and danger that these characters go through is what kept me reading until the end, but the romance frequently got in the way of that. I wish it had been toned down a bit so that the book could move forward less sporadically.

I am still interested enough in this series to read the rest, but it's not particularly high on my priorities list, compared to some others. I really hope that the plot takes more of a command in the second and third books and that it only gets better from here.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

 

This book is about a fantasy land based on Russia, called Ravka, in which there are ordinary citizens and people called Grisha--those with magical abilities such as healing or summoning fire. For centuries, Ravka has been split in half by something called the Shadow Fold, a swath of land bathed in eternal darkness and populated by winged monsters who feast on human flesh. The main character, Alina, is an apprentice mapmaker in the army, and part of a mission to cross the Fold for trading supplies from the West Ravka coast. While in the Fold, she discovers she has a power she never knew about, and gets pulled from the army to harness it and learn alongside the other Grisha. She becomes part of a plan by the Darkling--the most powerful Grisha in the country--to destroy the Shadow Fold once and for all.

 

I really liked this one. It was fun and interesting, though I do feel like it was very slow throughout most of the book. The first couple of chapters are quick and exciting, but then immediately afterward the action tapers off and we have a fairly repetitive formula: training to summon powers, lunch, training to fight, rinse and repeat. Progress was slow, both Alina's and the plot's. I appreciated that Alina was not instantly fantastic at using her sun summoning power, because way too many main characters in these types of books are, but I felt like there wasn't enough to move the story along while she struggled. I found myself only being able to read a few pages a day, despite having the time to finish this in a couple of sittings, because nothing really propelled me forward and it always felt like I was spending way more time reading than I actually was.

 

But I had to rate this book at four stars because despite the slow pace, I did really enjoy what I was reading. It was interesting, the world was intriguing, and the characters were believable. I just wish there were more subplots and shorter story arcs going on to pick up the pace and move the plot. I'm definitely interested in reading the rest of the series, as I've heard it gets darker and faster-paced and all-around more exciting.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

 

This is a standalone fantasy set in a small town (I think in Pennsylvania?), where fairies are real, and they live alongside humans in the forest outside of town. The fae are dangerous, but as long as the townsfolk take precautions, the fairies usually won't hurt them. And in the forest outside town, there is a glass coffin where a fairy boy with horns has been sleeping for as long as anybody can remember. Centuries, at least. But then the coffin shatters, and the horned boy wakes up. And Hazel and her brother Ben need to find a way to protect their town from repurcussions, like the monster at the heart of the forest, who hunts for the horned boy.

 

When I first started reading this book, I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about it by the end. The story was told in a bit of a roundabout way--lots of backstory was given upfront, in a sort of village-rumor storytelling style. It was cool, but I wasn't sure if it was going to benefit the book. But it did. It took a while for this style of writing to really benefit the book, but it definitely added to the story. I would have liked for more plot upfront, though, with the backstory woven between a bit more seemlessly. I think the style would have presented better that way, right from the beginning, rather than take half the book to be effective.

 

The second half of the book is really where the plot took off. The action began moving quickly, the mystery and magic finally bloomed, and the characters came fully alive. The second half of this book is the main reason why I rated this four stars. Because it was so satisfying and so engrossing. Reading through the less-than-stellar first half was worth it to get to the second part, but the first half still could have gone through more editing to make it as fantastic as the rest.

 

But overall, this book was a very good, and very enjoyable read. I would definitely recommend it to fantasy fans, especially those who are a bit tired of everything being a series.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

The Retribution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

 

 

Definitely, 100% satisfying end to the trilogy. There were lots of revelations that I wasn't expecting (and some that I didn't actually like all that much, but seemed to fit somehow anyway), and the creepiness factor of the first two books increased tenfold.

 

There was a lot of blood in this book. And I really liked it. Mostly because of the dry, somewhat sarcastic way it was described that somehow made the situations funny instead of horrific. That may be in part because of the audiobook, though. Either way, I thought it was a really good tactic to use because it was both in-character for Mara to describe things that way and made things a bit less gross. Thumbs up for that.

 

I also really liked the suspense of not knowing where Noah was or what happened to him, and how that suspense was so personal for Mara and carried the story along as we discovered more about the main plot. Noah's mysterious fate and whereabouts were almost impossible to solve, and kept me intrigued as we learned about the various twists and turns of Horizons and what exactly Dr. Kells had been doing all along. Everything got tangled up together, and there were so many layers to the mysteries. This book had a lot going on, but it never felt overwhelming.

 

The character development throughout this book in particular, and the series as a whole, was really interesting to follow. I really feel like I got to know these characters personally. Each book was, I felt, an improvement on the last in terms of quality.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

Got two new reviews up, finally.

 

Also, I made a random observation the other day. The majority of the authors on this list are women. Most of these people I read multiple titles by this year, but still. I found that interesting.

 

I really need to step up my reading game. I've got four more months to complete my challenge. I currently have seven library books checked out, four of which are untouched and one I just started yesterday (Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, which one of my friends really loves). I wrote out an unrealistic and unatainable reading schedule for the month the other day. Let's see how well I do.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

 

This book is about a girl named Grace who's kind of obsessed with the pack of wolves that live in the forest behind her house, and her discovery that they are something more akin to werewolves than true wolves. Also about Sam, a boy in the wolf pack who saved Grace from an attack when they were kids and has watched her from afar ever since.

 

I had a lot of mixed feelings about this book. I don't generally enjoy paranormal romance, or romance-heavy books in general. So I wasn't sure I'd like this book, but I decided to give it a shot since one of my friends loves the series so much.

 

And I'm still not sure exactly what I think about it. I debated for a while before rating this three stars, but I'm not sure that's really the correct score. I don't think there is a correct score I can give this book--for many reasons.

 

First off, let's talk about Grace. One half of the main character duo, and narrator for a lot of the book. I didn't like her very much. I found Grace to be profoundly uninteresting as a character. I didn't really care about anything that happened to her unless it directly involved the wolves, and I forgot most of what happened in her narrated sections for the same reason. If it wasn't about the wolves, it didn't stick in my mind because it was just so mundane. She had no sense of imagination and was a bit wooden for much of the story. At about the halfway point, she did become more emotionally engaging and more interesting, but I still wouldn't say that I liked her. And having interesting main characters is a really important thing. And I can say without any exaggeration that I would not have finished this book if Grace was the only narrator. I probably wouldn't have made it more than 100 pages with her. She had this sort of cardboard-tasting way of describing things. Not much felt alive in her sections.

 

On the contrary, I found Sam to be fascinating. He hooked my interest immediately and held it consistently throughout. He's the reason I made it far enough in this book to reach the part where Grace starts to occasionally become moderately intriguing. His history, really only touched upon, was so interesting and his relationships and dynamics with the rest of the wolves were so engaging. I was able to forgive much of the strange insta-love/fell-in-love-as-different-species thing he had with Grace because of his character beyond the romance.

 

I do really wish that less of the narrative had been devoted to romance, and more time dedicated to the wolves and the tightly wound plot that occupied the last 125 pages or so. If that last bit was the whole book, I would have read it much faster and enjoyed it a lot more. I'm interested enough to pick up the next book, but it's not a top priority. I have heard a lot of good things about the rest of the trilogy--that it gets better and Grace gets more interesting, etc--so I'll reserve my judgment on the series as a whole until I have at least given Linger a chance.

 

 

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

(cover artwork from the paperback/re-release hardcover, but link is to the edition I got from the library)

 

Plot in a nutshell: Celaena Sardothien was the country's most nortorious assassin, until she was suddenly captured and sentenced to spend the rest of her life in a slave labor death camp. One year later, she is presented with an offer from the Crown Prince: become his champion in a bizarre contest for the position of Royal Assassin in exchange for her freedom. She takes the offer, obviously (because who wants to die in a salt mine slave camp?), and she takes on a fake identity in hopes of keeping an element of surprise over her competitors. But there's something evil in the castle, and it's killing champions one by one. So Celaena has to figure out what's going on and how to stop it.

 

I really enjoyed this book. Really, really enjoyed it. It was by no means a perfect book--Celaena was a borderline Mary Sue character at times--but there were far more good things about this book than bad. The world-building was superb. It was actually what motivated me to finally pick this book up after having it on my TBR for three years. I saw a lots of posts on Tumblr about the world and the characters, most of whom we didn't get to meet in this book, so I have confidence that this series will take off and deliver greatness to the fantasy genre.

 

Now as for the characters themselves. As I mentioned before, Celaena had a lot of Mary Sue qualities. She's the best assassin in the whole country despite being only an eighteen year old girl, and she was beatiful. Really, really, really beautiful. That is made perfectly clear. It made me roll my eyes occasionally that we were constantly reminded of her good looks and perfect badassery. However, being both good-looking and a badass isn't a crime if it's balanced well. And since it is also made clear that Celaena had to train for years to become the best helped create a balance, one which I hope will be made stronger as the series continues. I hope we get to see more of Celaena's flaws in later books, and that she becomes more well-rounded. One thing about her, though, that I really liked was that being a highly skilled assassin didn't stop her from being feminine. And in fact, once she got the opportunity, she went full-on girly-girl mode, with fancy gowns and jewelry and the whole shebang. Too often in fiction, you have female characters that are either feminine OR badass. You rarely see female characters who are both. This lack of traditionally feminine fighter characters sends the subtle message that femininity is weak, all while loudly claiming to have "strong female characters." I really appreciated that Celaena was able to switch gears from practical-minded assassin to feminine lady of court at the drop of a hat. I hope we meet a lot more characters like her, on a spectrum from traditionally feminine to not, because there are many kinds of strength.

 

Prince Dorian fell a bit flat in my opinion. It seemed like most of his characterization was based on his growing attraction to Celaena, at least throughout the first half of the book. He did become more developed and relatable as the narrative continued, which I appreciated. But I think he could have been presented this way earlier on, which would have made him much more interesting to read. I did appreciate his role in the love triangle, though (words I don't often say), mainly because although he was initially attracted to Celaena based on her looks, that reason ends up fading in favor of her actual personality. And though he doesn't forget that he finds her physically attractive (which would have been unrealistic), it's good to see a love triangle character forming a deeper bond with the main character. You don't see that very often, especially in YA. YA fiction has this bad habit of creating love triangles for the sake of dramatic tension and then not developing anybody beyond the main character, which makes them hard to believe. But the love triangle here was actually really believable, because it progressed slowly, and not always smoothly, and everybody involved was aware that there were way more important things to worry about (like who's killing all the champions and why?) than which man Celaena was going to fall in love with, if at all.

 

Continuing on the train of love-triangle characters, let's talk about Chaol. I think he was my favorite character in this book. Or at least favorite male character (because Nehemia was great, too). He's stoic, takes his job very seriously, and seems like the only sane man of the cast for a lot of the group. While Dorian is busy being Distracted by the Sexy, Chaol is constantly reminding him that Celaena was locked up in a death camp for a reason and he needs to not trust her so easily. And as time goes on, he gets to know Celaena better and grudgingly admits that she can be trusted, and despite being an assassin is still a regular person with a sense of morality, as opposed to a cold-hearted monster. His character development and growing friendship with Celaena felt the most realistic to me, out of everybody.

 

And finally, let's talk Nehemia. I LOVED her. She was sassy and fun and I really liked her friendship with Celaena. They both really needed it and it helped them both to grow so much over the course of the book. I want to talk more about her, but since so much of her character is a spoiler for major plot points, I won't.

 

I've already picked up the sequel, Crown of Midnight. I have high hopes for this series. Keeping my fingers crossed that they're met.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas

 

Sequel to Throne of Glass.

 

I certainly liked this book a lot more than the first (and I gave that one four stars). Celaena was a bit less of an ace, making more mistakes and getting herself in more danger as a result of them, making me much more concerned for what would happen to her. I also found the romance to be more satisfying in this book, because it involved my preferred ship. But the relationships of all kinds grew so much in this book. Celaena and Nehemia's friendship journeyed along realistically--they became extremely close, but that didn't prevent them from clashing over their differing interests. The stakes continued to rise throughout the book, and everyone had so much more to lose at the end than in Throne of Glass. The end, though the main conflict was wrapped up, was much less resolved than in the first book, but it was satisfying nonetheless. There is clearly so much more in store for these characters in the books to come, and an ending as cheery as Throne of Glass had really wouldn't have fit after everything we learned in this installment.

 

These books are quickly rising the ranks and approaching my favorites list I can't wait to get started on book three, Heir of Fire.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

The City of Ember: The Graphic Novel by Jeanne DuPrau, Dallas Middaugh, and Niklas Asker

 

 

The art style is interesting, but in all it's actually a rather poor adaptation. I haven't read the original book in four years, so I've forgotten some of the finer details, and I have to say, if someone had never read the book before picking this up, they'd probably be very confused by a lot of what goes on. The pacing is uneven and unnatural, since the narrative was cut down to have a shorter book. And the story suffered for it. None of the characters' relationships with each other are very well established or developed, making engaging characters feel flat and unrealistic in this graphic novel adaptation. For any true fan of the original City of Ember, I recommend giving this a pass. You're not missing anything and it certainly isn't worth spending money on.

 

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

The Assassin and the Pirate Lord by Sarah J. Maas

Prequel novella to Throne of Glass

Read in the novella bind-up called The Assassin's Blade

 

This story was fun. Not quite as much so as the main series, but I did like getting to finally see Sam (who is mentioned quite often in the first two books of the main series, but never appears on-screen). He's an interesting character and I hope I get to see more of him in the other novellas. It took a little while for me to get invested in this storyline, though, compared to the series proper. The main character, Celaena, has not yet undergone the character development from her capture and enslavement backstory, so she's a bit arrogant and eye-roll worthy at times in this. She gets better, though. Little by little.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

The Assassin and the Healer by Sarah J. Maas

 

More of a short story than a true novella (it was only about 40 pages), either way, enjoyable. I liked it more than The Assassin and the Pirate Lord, partially because Celaena seemed a teensy bit closer to her character in Throne of Glass. She'd lost some of the unbecoming arrogance her personality was saturated with in the previous story (though she does struggle with it regularly throughout the series proper), so she was more enjoyable to read about. I also liked that this story included a second viewpoint, which was more similar to Sarah J. Maas' writing style in the main series, which is told from numerous perspectives and has a much wider scale of focus. Having the two perspectives gave that same feeling to this story, and made it seem much longer--in a good way. I would have loved for this to have been expanded into a full novella if it was possible, but the story is complete as it is. 4 out of 5 stars.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

 

A graphic novel memoir of a childhood spent witnessing the 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran.

 

The story was very interesting. Breaking the tale of her childhood up into many small sections based around certain themes made it very easy to read this in small batches in between other things I had to do. I was very interested in learning about Marjane Satrapi's childhood, and her perspective on the Islamic Revolution, but found the art style lacking. It was a bit too simplistic for the story's content, and, I felt, detracted from the impact of a lot of the events. The ending was also very abrupt and left me confused. So, overall, this was okay. Certainly worth reading, and a valuable work of literature, but mostly it was unreached potential.