Books like Persepolis

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi reads as witty, emotional. These 12 books share its genome — matched by how they actually read, not just their shelf label.

What Persepolis is like to read

A child's-eye view of revolution and war rendered in stark black-and-white panels, alternating disarming humor with sudden brutality. The candid, precocious voice makes political upheaval intimate and heartbreaking without ever losing its wit. Best for: readers who want history and exile told through an honest, funny, fiercely personal graphic memoir.

Fun Home

Alison Bechdel · 2006

A recursive, literary graphic memoir that circles the same events through the lens of Joyce, Proust and Camus, braiding a daughter's queer self-discovery with the mystery of her closeted father's death.

complete story

Maus

Art Spiegelman · 1991

A son interviews his difficult father about surviving Auschwitz, and the act of making the book becomes part of the book — spare cartooning carrying unbearable weight, funny and devastating by turns.

creepy, not gorycomplete story

Crying in H Mart

Michelle Zauner · 2021

An intimate, food-suffused memoir that braids childhood friction with her mother, treasured Seoul summers, and the raw grief of caregiving through terminal cancer.

complete story

The Diary of a Young Girl

Anne Frank · 1947

An adolescent's candid, funny, self-scrutinizing voice unfolds inside a hidden annex while history closes in — the reading experience is intimate and everyday, made unbearable by what the reader knows is coming.

creepy, not gorycomplete story

The Complete Persepolis

Marjane Satrapi · 2023

A definitive collected journey through Satrapi's formative years across revolutionary Iran and European exile, rendered in her signature plain-spoken, visually stark graphic style

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Spinning

Tillie Walden · 2017

A quiet, introspective graphic memoir tracing Walden's teenage years in competitive figure skating as she grapples with sexuality, identity, and the isolating pressure of performance.

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Blankets

Craig Thompson · 2003

A quiet, sprawling graphic memoir of first love, faith, and family, told in fluid black-and-white imagery that lingers on small moments.

complete storydeep cut

Honor girl

Maggie Thrash · 2015

An intimate, aching account of a first same-sex crush unfolding over a single summer at an all-girls camp, told with teenage immediacy and emotional rawness.

YAcomplete storydeep cut