Persepolis

When people ask me to recommend a book that gives a good idea of what it was like to grow up in Iran post revolution, especially during the war, I reply without a second's hesitation: the Persepolis books by Marjane Satrapi. Yes, they are graphic novels and that can be off putting to the folk who either don't like, think they don't like, or purposely don't want to like graphic novels. If you pass it up because you are one of those people or worse, think graphic novels are beneath serious readers, then you are passing up on the best books out there on the topic (and there is a lot of them.) They really are the best retelling of the Iranian revolution and the Iran/Iraq war and its impact on Iranians, especially the educated middle class . Out of all the autobiographical books I've read by Iranian [female] authors who grew up in the same environment and time, this one was the one that rang the truest to me, that neither downplayed nor exaggerated anything. It's the one book that I feel could have been written by me.

And that, my friends, is the biggest seal of approval from me for anything having to do with life in Iran post revolution.