The first memoir that really mad me stunned. Graphic novel actually is not really my thing, but this one is different. I enjoyed it a lot. This is the second book of Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian writer, that I read after "Embroidery". While "Embroidery" successfully made me laughing, not this memoir, this one put me into laughter and also tears. I felt so involved with it.
Persepolis 1 tells about Marjane's childhood story during Iranian Revolution (6-14 yrs old). Afraid of their only daughter's future, her parents sent her to a Catholic school in Austria. The story ended here.
While in Persepolis 2, Marjane told about her school days in Austria. All alone in a foreign country without any family, friends, being minority, having no place to visit during holidays really put her into deep despair. As a young teenager, she also dealt with alcohol, drugs, and free sex and finally had a dispute with the nun teachers at her school. She left school. Lived on the street. Ended in a hospital and at last returned back to Iran to her beloved family.
Marjane is really honest in telling her story. Reading his memoir made me feel like reading my best friend's letter. She told everything in detail. From this memoir, we could learn her character as an independent, brave, and very honest person. She's lucky to have such an open minded parents who raised her with alot of love and freedom.
This book already adapted into movie. The movie also in comic-strip form.
A superb book. Funny yet breathtaking.
Persepolis 1 & 2
My Girls
Najla (4 yrs old) is the big sister
Zea (2 yrs old) is the little sister
Sometimes live in harmony, sometimes have a fight
This second is hugging each other, next minute fighting for their toys
The big sister is feminine, while the little sister is boyish
The big sister is a sensitive child, while the little sister is an easy going child
The big sister will cry seeing people's fighting and decide to leave the danger area, while the little sister will be curious and come closer to find out more
The big sister is so girly, loving all kinds of accesories
While the little sister is a food lover
When we go browsing around a mall together, the big sister will ask for necklace, bracelet and beautiful hat
While the little sister said, "Mama, Zea wants some bakwan"
Still they have something in common
Both of them love singing
The big sister loves Nidji (since Najla's hair as curly as Giring's hair)
The little sister loves D'Masiv
(thanks to Dahsyat, Inbox, Dering and other music programs on TV)
Both of them are a huge fans of Mama's tummy
They can sleep tight if they can hold Mama's tummy all night long
Both of them are the best daughters that Mama ever has
Thank you, Najla & Zea for the best things that you have done to Mama
Thank you, Lord for this great blessing
Written by: A Beaming Mama
The Road
A gloomy story about a father and his young son walk along America that already burnt into pieces, written by Cormac McCarthy. They go slowly to the seashore. There's nothing move in this totally destroyed area. Only dust and the blowing wind.
They have nothing but a gun to defend themselves from bad guys, their only clothes on their bodies, a trolley full of remaining food and themselves.
I don't know the period of this occasion and also the cause of this terrible catastrophe. The writer not mention it. He just described America in its worst condition. People kill each other to defend themselves. No life. Nothing at all.
The writer wrote the story in a very detail way, so you could feel their despair, their sorrow and feel sorry for their miserable life.
This book is winner of Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007 and already adapted into a movie, planned to be launched on October 2009.
PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama have translated it into Bahasa Indonesia, it's a good translation though by Sonya Sondakh and beautifully edited by Sapardi Djoko Damono.
The Wednesday Letters
A simple story written by Jason F. Wright. Remind me of Danielle Steele's books. Telling about dead parents, their 2 sons and 1 daughter, their problems and all the solution.
The unique part is: their father has a habit to write a letter to their mother every Wednesday. It happens during their marriage. So sweet. At the time their parents passed away, their adult children find and read the letters. Out of the blue, they find out the huge family secret that could change their live completely.
A family story. Very simple. Not bad after all but not so special. It's already translated into Bahasa Indonesia by Penerbit Gagas Media.
The Life's Golden Ticket
A really inspiring book. Based on the writer near-death experience. 10 years a go, Brendon Burchard, the writer, had a terrible car accident. He survived and felt that he got second chance to live, therefore he wanted to make his life and also other people's life to be more meaningful.
If your life is considered as a playground and you receive a golden ticket to visit it, what will you do? Would you come, play and watch the show there? Will it change your life's point of view? Or is there any other things that you would like to change?
This book offers a simple message about the courage to forgive ourselves and to confront our past with one ultimate objective is to reach the life that we've been dreaming of.
A very recommended book. Give this book to people you love and let them experience their life's golden ticket.
This book already translated into Bahasa Indonesia by Lanny Murtihardjana (PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama).
The Kabul Beauty School
All women is mostly the same, not only in a safe area, but also in a war zone like Afghanistan, we love beauty salon. We need make up, new hair cut, medicure, pedicure and all other enjoyable treatment.
This book is hilarious. It is a memoir of Deborah Rodriguez, an American volunteer who went to Afghanistan, got married to a Mujahidin man, and opened her first Kabul Beauty School. Her objective is to help Afghan women in supporting their family needs.
I really enjoy reading this book. I couldn't stop laughing and also felt touched. The memoir is written down in a simple way. Laughs and tears come side by side.
This book will be soon adapted into movie.
After reading "Kite Runner", "A Thousand Splendid Sun" (Khaled Hosseini), "Three Cups of Tea" (Greg Mortenson) and this book, I feel closer to Afgahnistan *sok akrab*. Got a lot of info and description about the place, the people and I found it all really fascinating. Who knows I could go there someday. Drinking their cups of tea, meet their hospitality and trying their beauty salon. Who knows.
This book already translated in Bahasa Indonesia by Penerbit Bentang, and the translation is also good.
A Wild Sheep Chase
Again, another Murakami's book. This is the 10th book. Yup, after falling in love with his works, I decided to go to Aksara bookstore and bought all available Murakami's books. A bit difficult to get his complete collection since not many bookstores sell it. Well, now I am in the middle of finishing the book one by one.
This time, Murakami wrote about sheep. Weird as usual. Talking about a twenty-something advertising executive guy who receives a postcard from a friend and casually appropriates the image for an insurance company's advertisement. What he doesn't realize is the picture in the postcard shows a mutant sheep with a star on its back and suddenly a guy comes to meet him and instruct him either to find the sheep or face terrible consequences.
Thus begin a journey that take him from Tokyo to the remote and snowy mountains of northern Japan, where he confronts not only the mythological sheep, but also the confines of tradition in the demons deep within himself. It's really a witty adventure.
Interesting story but not as special as other Murakami's books.
The Housekeeper and the Professor
A beautiful story about family, memory and Math, written by Yoko Ogawa. It tells about a brilliant Math professor with a peculiar problem -ever since a traumatic head injury- he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory and a young hoesekeeper with a ten-yr-old son, who is hired to care for him.
Every morning, a strange and beautiful relationship blossom between them. The story moves a bit slow but enchanting. What bothers me is the Math theory and stuff that spread all over this book. Since Math is not really my thing, so I have to skip certain pages in order not to get headache *lemot mode on*. But all in all this is a touchy story. Still.
Our 7th Wedding Anniversary
Dear Ayah,
My life was incomplete
....till the day you walk into my life
Thank you for being such a great hubby and daddy
You really are the best thing that ever happen to me
Happy 7th wedding anniversary, Ayah
lots of love: Mama
(celebrated on April 5, 2009)
