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 memoirincomicstrips about growing up in iran during the islamic revolution here is the continuation of her fascinating story in 1984 marjane flees fundamentalism and the war with iraq to begin a new life in vienna once there she faces the trials of adolescence far from her friends and family and while she soon carves out a place for herself among a group of fellow outsiders she continues to struggle for a sense of belongingfinding that she misses her home more than she can stand marjane returns to iran after graduation 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 marjane allows her past to weigh heavily on her until she finds some likeminded friends falls in love and begins studying art at a university however the repression and statesanctioned chauvinism eventually lead her to question whether she can have a future in iranas funny and poignant as its predecessor persepolis 2 is another cleareyed and searing condemnation of the human cost of fundamentalism in its depiction of the struggles of growing uphere compounded by marjanes status as an outsider both abroad and at homeit is raw honest and incredibly illuminating