Ten Books To Read If You Are In The Mood For Graphic Novels

Saga Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

I love this series! Volume 6 will be out later this year. It is a blend of science-fiction and fantasy. The story is about a man and a woman who come from two warring planets and wind up falling in love. They have a child together, something that is definitely not approved of, and find themselves on the run. Strong characters, good story, and awesome art!

Fables Volumes 1-22 This series may seem long, but it is completed so at least you know where you stand! It is basically retellings of famous fairy tales, folk tales, classic novels, etc in a graphic novel format. One of the fun things is to see if you can make all the connections with the stories they are based on. The story is pretty solid, the female characters are not the damsel in distress types, and the art is always a lot of fun.

Maus Volumes 1 & 2 So far I was talking series, but if you want something shorter then there is the awesomeness that is Maus. It is a retelling of the events of the Holocaust involving mice. When I first heard of it, I didn't think I would like it at all, but it was one of my very first attempts at graphic novels and I loved it. It is probably one of the more widely received and recognized graphic novels out there.

Lazarus Volume 1, 2, 3, and, 4 This is a series I only even started in 2016 and I love it! I am huge on strong female leads and Lazarus is in a class all her own. The best part is that she pushes against what she is supposed to be in an attempt to be even better. I really like that about her. I have tried Greg Rucka before and never really clicked with him, so I am so glad I gave him another chance! The overall story to this one is a bit different from the norm, too, and is definitely different from what I would normally read.

Lumberjanes Volume 1, 2, 3, and soon 4 This is a series I started in 2015 and really enjoy. It is just fun. It is about a summer camp where things are not quite like any other summer camp in the area. Plus in a society where there are not always that many strong girls for young girls to look up to, there is this series out there selling like crazy and showing that there is potential. The adventures they get up to are not necessarily something that can happen in the real world, but it is refreshing to not have the damsel in distress situations come up. Plus, great art!

Persepolis Volume 1 & 2 This was another early foray into graphic novels. I actually credit this as my first really graphic novel... It was when I was early into blogging and this was offered as a review copy. I wasn't sure if I would like it, but took a chance on it and loved it! While I credit Fables with really kicking off my graphic novel reading, this book was the one that showed me I actually liked them. This book recaps a life in Tehran and what it was like for a young girl to grow up there. Definitely eye-opening!

American Born Chinese I wasn't sure which book to talk about by Gene Luen Yang, so I went with the first one I read by him.  This is called a modern fable and is actually three unrelated stories that turn out to be related in the end. I love Fables and Yang's books often could be called them. He takes things that I don't really know that much about and makes them really readable and engaging! If you read anything by him it is worthwhile, but this is where I started with his books.

Hexed Volume 1, 2, and eventually 3 In 2015 I joined Scribd and basically the same week, they added graphic novels. I can't pin point why I checked this series out, I think someone recommended it, but I am so glad I got a chance to check it out. I love it! There are only 12 issues, all of which are on Scribd, but it is such an overall good series. Luci is just such a great character you will enjoy spending time with her and the other characters that she crosses paths with. 

Deadpool When you get into Marvel, the series isn't as straight forward as the others that I have mentioned. I joined Marvel Unlimited last year and I think Deadpool is the best thing that came from that... He is funny and off-beat and sarcastic... I just love his comics! I used to think I didn't like superhero comics at all, but I guess it just goes to show that things change...

Captain Marvel I have read Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel and as Ms. Marvel. I think I like her better at Captain Marvel, but overall I love her. I think she is finally getting a movie and I cannot wait! She is definitely one of the best female characters in the Marvel Universe and I still buy her in trades even though I have Marvel Unlimited. Plus, her cat is great.

I honestly could go on, but I guess I am at 10... What are your favourite graphic novels?

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted over here.

Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi

From the best–selling author of Persepolis comes this gloriously entertaining and enlightening look into the sex lives of Iranian women. Embroideries gathers together Marjane’s tough–talking grandmother, stoic mother, glamorous and eccentric aunt and their friends and neighbors for an afternoon of tea drinking and talking. Naturally, the subject turns to love, sex and the vagaries of men.

As the afternoon progresses, these vibrant women share their secrets, their regrets and their often outrageous stories about, among other things, how to fake one’s virginity, how to escape an arranged marriage, how to enjoy the miracles of plastic surgery and how to delight in being a mistress. By turns revealing and hilarious, these are stories about the lengths to which some women will go to find a man, keep a man or, most important, keep up appearances.

Full of surprises, this introduction to the private lives of some fascinating women, whose life stories and lovers will strike us as at once deeply familiar and profoundly different from our own, is sure to bring smiles of recognition to the faces of women everywhere—and to teach us all a thing or two.

Title and author of book: Embroderies by Marjane Satrapi

Fiction or non-fiction? Genre? Graphic Novel. Current Affairs.

What led you to pick up this book? I have read her other three books, so figured it was time I got around to this one!

Summarize the plot, but don’t give away the ending! See above...

What did you like most about the book? The style. It is a group of women sitting around discussing what life was like in Iran. Iran has been in the news a lot over the last few years, but it was never about the personal stories. Satrapi gathers a group of Iranian women together to talk about something so simplistic as their sex lives. For Iranian women, though, it is not that simple. She infuses humour into the telling and brings to life women who have had to deal with things that we can only begin to imagine in the western world. At the same time, though, it is not that different from the way things are here. I think we forget that sometimes, so it was wonderful for Satrapi to humanize the story.

What did you like least? It was too short. I am glad I took this out from the library because it took me no time at all to read it. I actually was sitting in the parking lot waiting for the guy to buy something. He wasn't in there all that long and I think I had it finished and was just sitting there waiting for him to come out.

Have you read any other books by this author? What did you think of those books? I have read all of her other books. For my thoughts, click on the links. (Remember that this was back in my early days of blogging and the reviews might not be the greatest!) Persepolis 1, Persepolis 2, and Chicken with Plums.

What did you think of the main character? There really isn't a main character. It is just a bunch of women each telling their story, so it is more like a collection of short stories. They also aren't really 'characters' because this is a true story and they are telling about things that really happened to them. I liked all the characters and enjoyed reading their stories.

What about the ending? I have no complaints about the ending. Just, as I said above, it came too soon!

I am glad that I have read all of her books now. It was three years ago that I read the first three, though, so I think I might reread them this year. When I read them before I was still very much a newbie to graphic novels, so my opinions might have changed over time. I do think that everyone should read Satrapi. She is a wealth of information in a world where her country is often being condemned on the news. It is always good to have both sides of the story. I hope that she has a new book out soon!

Chicken With Plums - Marjane Satrapi [September/06]

I have previously posted about reading and enjoying Persepolis 1 and 2 by Marjane Satrapi. So, when I saw that she had a new book coming out, I requested it from Random House. It's out now, so anyone that likes Satrapi might want to looking into reading it.

From Random House:

In her acclaimed Persepolis books and in Embroideries, Marjane Satrapi rendered the events of her life and times in a uniquely captivating and powerful voice and vision. Now she turns that same keen eye and ear to the heartrending story of her great-uncle, a celebrated Iranian musician who gave up his life for music and love.

We are in Tehran in 1958, and Nasser Ali Khan, one of Iran’s most revered tar players, discovers that his beloved instrument is irreparably damaged. Though he tries, he cannot find one to replace it, one whose sound speaks to him with the same power and passion with which his music speaks to others. In despair, he takes to his bed, renouncing the world and all its pleasures, closing the door on the demands and love of his wife and his four children. Over the course of the week that follows, his family and close friends attempt to change his mind, but Nasser Ali slips further and further into his own reveries: flashbacks and flash-forwards (with unexpected appearances by the likes of the Angel of Death and Sophia Loren) from his own childhood through his children’s futures. And as the pieces of his story slowly fall into place, we begin to understand the profundity of his decision to give up life.

Marjane Satrapi brings what has become her signature humor, insight, and generosity to this emotional tale of life and death, and the courage and passion both require of us. The poignant story of one man, it is also a story of stunning universality–and an altogether luminous work.

I could have reviewed this before now, but to be honest. I don't know what to say. The flap tells you pretty much all there is to say without revealing the whole story. I will express, though, that I did not really like this book as much as the two previous graphic novels I read by her. The art was good, and the story was different, but not something that I couldn't put down. It really is a just "okay" attempt. But some people might like it, because it is not terrible, it just didn't speak to me like her other novels have. I do hope to read Embroderies by her eventually, though. I think that one is more up with her previous two works.

My recommendation to everyone, this is a book that you might want to read because you have enjoyed other Satrapi novels, but it just didn't capture me like her others did. I would either get it from the library or wait a year until it is out in soft cover.

I just have to say, though, of all the Random House books that I have requested in the last few months, this is the only one that I didn't enjoy immensely. I have good taste, most of the time anyways.

3/5

For more information about purchasing a copy of your own, click here.

Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return - Marjane Satrapi [August/06]

This is the sequel to Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, which I just recently read.

From the flap:

In PERSEPOLIS, heralded by the LOS ANGELES TIMES as "one of the freshest and most original memoirs of our day," Marjane Satrapi dazzled us with her heartrending memoir-in-comic-strips about growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revloution. Here is the continuation of her fascinating story.

In 1984, Marjane flees fundamentalism and the war with Iraq to attend high school in Vienna, where she faces the trials of adolescence far from her friends and family. While she soon carves out a place for herself among a group of fellow outsiders, she continues to miss her home desperately. After graduation, Marjane returns to Iran. Her difficult homecoming forces her to confront the changes both she and her country have undergone in her absence, and her shame at what she perceives as her failure in Austria. Life begins to look brighter once Marjane finds a group of like minded friends, falls in love, and begins studying art at a university - until the repression and state-sanctioned chauvinism lead her to question whether she can have a future in Iran.

As funny and poignant as its predecessor, PERSEPOLIS 2 is another clear-eyed and searing condemnationof the human cost of fundamentalism. In its depiction of the struggles of growing up - here compounded by Marjane's status as an outsider both abroad and at home - it's raw, honest, and incredibly illuminating.

This is of course the follow up to Persepolis. In the first book we leave off at the airport as Marjane is going to live in Vienna with the hopes of having a better life than the one available in constrained Iran. She has a lot of trouble with her move, though. She doesn't feel like herself, because she feels like she is abandoning her people. While away she turns her back on her culture for quite some time before she begins to appreaciate herself again.

She attempts a return to Iran after a while because her rebellious streak in the outside world is getting to her, and she is suffering because she cannot seem to find her place. She thinks going back to where she began and being with her parents will help her. She does start to come to life when she gets there, but it takes some time. She makes some decisions, though, that she ends up regretting. She even gets married. In the end, though, Iran is not a healthy place for someone who has dreams, and so she sets off into the outside once again. This time, though, she is stronger and has a better idea what she wants to do with her life.

Equally as good and creative as the first one.

4.5/5

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood - Marjane Satrapi [August/06]

I finally got this book and its sequel in the mail on Friday, so last night at work I sat down and read them because they are about life in Iran, something that me with my Canadian background is not fully aware of.

From the flap:

Wise, funny, and heartbreaking, PERSEPOLIS is Marjane Satrapi's memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran's last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.

PERSEPOLIS paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering
contradictions between home life and public life. Marjane's child's-eye view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, PERSEPOLIS is at once a story of growing up and a reminder of the himan cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, with laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whow we cannot help but fall in love.

This was a very creative book style. I do read comics, but they are not something I normally read. A few online ones here and there, but the ones I really enjoyed are either not being written anymore or have gone down a path where I do not find them enjoyable anymore. So, I need a decent comic read. I do like Thieves and Kings which is by a local comic artist. I have to read more of him one of these days.

Anyways, this book tells the story of a young girl growing up in war torn Iran. Life is not easy for a female, for a citizen period, and she is constantly watching her parents fight for their rights. If her parents are really like what she has displayed, they are not your idea of Iranians at all. The father gives his daughter and wife lots of freedom, as long as they do not break the laws presented for Iranian women. Marjane's mother participates in protests for the rights of Iranians and Marjane's father talks to her like an equal person, not a subordinate. This is not the image that people living in other parts of the world have about Iran.

When she is still young her parents make the decision to send her to Vienna where she will have more oppurtunities to grow and prosper. The schools in Tehran, the town she was born in, are getting more oppressive and they are telling fabrications of what life is like instead of the truth. Her parents want her to have a quality eduacation and make something of herself. Life has gotten hard to live, they are presently at war with Iraq, and that is where we leave the family. With Marjane at the airport about to embark on an adventure in a new part of the world.

This is a Random House book. Very worth a read for someone that is looking for something different to read. Even if you are someone that doesn't normally read but likes comics, well worth your time.

4.5/5