shane_the_reading_rat's Reviews (1.21k)

wow i want to read the sequel to this immediately, this was amazing. i think the simplicity of the black-and-white art and how the people and backgrounds are drawn really makes the impact of events feel much more intense. basically, i love everything about the art in Persepolis.
there are a couple of nitpicks i have— how the chapters (or pseudo-chapters, i guess? they weren’t officially chapters but were distinct sections) felt short and choppy in a bad way, and it was difficult to tell how much time was passing between events —but honestly both of these only affected my reading experience slightly negatively. loved this, very excited to read the next one about Marjane Satrapi’s time in Vienna and her return to Iran.

this book has interested me for a long time, as i’ve known im very likely autistic for a while and knew this was by an autistic author. this book was interesting but definitely hit a problem i’ve noticed in books of this style, that they’re just too academic for my tastes and don’t feel as grounded as i’d like them to. and that may just be a problem with me, i can have a difficult time sometimes understanding theory and the point of it/how it can be applied for use to help people (i tend to be a very literal thinker, so often theory is a little too abstract and, yknow, theoretical for me)
the essays also sometimes felt disjointed, due to the fact that they were originally published on a blog and not meant to be put all next to each other in a book.
interesting read, i did really like the entire point of “throwing away the master’s tools” in terms of language we use, but overall just a little too confusing and academic for me.

just not holding my interest currently. might try this again in the future, but not at all confident enough in that to just put this under ‘paused’

yes this did make me cry. i will be so normal about this book forever and ever and ever

:/ feeling very meh about this.
in general i love the concept, but it often felt like i was being beaten over the head with worldbuilding and telling-not-showing of what the book means (especially towards the end when the answer to what actually happened is revealed).
+a lot of what the characters say is melodramatic to the extreme. so yeah, love the concept but the execution was (at least to me) Not Great

this is an incredible memoir and i wish Ahed all the best. it was good to get to read about the struggles for Palestine’s freedom pre-2023, as admittedly i knew next to nothing about Palestine and Israel pre-Oct 7th (i was also very much a child in the 2010s when the protests Ahed was involved in were first happening, so yeah. i was very unaware). i think she is one of the bravest people i have ever heard of.

this was fun, but to me just didn’t stand out that much among Adiba Jaigirdar’s other books. Meghna and Rani both felt like pretty bland characters, and Zak (while he was absolutely horrible) was at least the most interesting character. it also feels like them making an app that is straight up spyware should have been a way bigger deal than it was???
anyway, i did like their romance and the pacing of it. felt like it was paced very well (which, knowing me, means it was paced very slowly lmao).

man i have a lot of various feelings about this book.
first of all, my favorite characters in this duology consistently were Ouyang and Wang Baoxiang. i think they're both absolutely fascinating, and i loved the amount of focus on Baoxiang in this book.
i also think that part three of this book is the best part by far, and a highlight of the entire book is that lake battle scene. oh my god. that was incredible.
okay now for the critique. im gonna hide this behind spoilers because 1: it just straight up does include spoilers, 2: im gonna be talking about one of the topics in this book that i believe requires massive content warnings, Ouyang's self harm.

so in case you click on this without having read this book, Ouyang consistently self harms through burning or cutting throughout the book. he seems to believe that it helps him (really, it just blocks out any feelings, but that's what he wants it to do). i wouldn't mention this if i didn't believe that it's relevant, and i'll probably never mention it in a review again, but i have a history with self harm and really felt oddly about how it was portrayed in this book. ii love Ouyang as a character and through a solid chunk of this book, i believed that where the plot was going was that eventually he would be okay with teaming up with Zhu Yuanzhang and would recover. this is very much not the case, instead Zhu discovers what Ouyang is doing and hurts him to try and harness that """focus""" or whatever. i understand that this is a story of two pretty villainous characters both focused on their individual goals, but i just was not comfortable with how self harm is handled as that's a pretty damn serious topic

long tangent but i felt it needed to be said. all in all, i do think this duology is incredibly well written, with generally amazing character work and discussion of fate, but i do have some quibbles with it.

this was incredible, i'm growing to like novels-in-verse more and more and i think this is a fantastic example of the format. thought all of the characters were super interesting :D
im not going to lower my rating for this, as its very much a me thing, but

i dont think sadie accepting evan back should have happened as quickly. evan was consistently being awful to her and about jackson. theyre kinda terrible ngl

also i am a massive sucker for the dramatic scene in some romances where one person rushes to find the other at the very end. its so fun every time

this was a sweet book. i like that, while it did include scientific info about chickens, it was mainly Sy’s personal experiences with them. fun to read about :)