Insightful, amusing, and elegant.
A collection of 156 installments of a weekly comic strip by cartoonist Sattouf that follows the everyday life of a real Parisian girl—his friend's daughter—from ages 9 to 12 as she shares her thoughts on issues both timely and timeless.
Young Esther lives with her mother, father, and older brother (and eventually a baby brother) in Paris’ 17th arrondissement. They are of modest means but nevertheless send Esther to a private school—a decision Esther doesn’t quite understand but her beloved dad attributes to wanting to keep her safe from “little punks.” Being a working-class kid in a private school—where she is popular and does well in her studies—informs Esther’s perspective as she amusingly and insightfully narrates her thoughts on family, gender, celebrity, wealth, terrorism, religion, racism, politics, love, and flies. She also explores her fantastical dreams and aspirations to be a book editor. Sometimes Esther has the misunderstandings of a child (she mishears adult terms, like the name of a pornographic website), and sometimes those misunderstandings are more complex, like Esther’s feeling that homosexuality doesn’t make sense because having two dads would mean no one would be around to cook or clean the house, a belief based on her own family’s domestic dynamics. Esther’s opinions can be controversial, and she is obsessed with people’s appearances, but the innocence and bravado with which she explains them are reminders that the decency of the person is more important than the opinions they hold. Sattouf is a superb cartoonist, and each strip is a master class in the form. The serialized nature of the original makes some information repetitive, and the plot meanders with the seasons and discoveries of adolescent life. But the overall effect is a treat.
Insightful, amusing, and elegant.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-31692-4
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fluffy fun for cat lovers.
After a couple finds a kitten at their door, even the most mundane routines become different.
In a series of full-color minicomics, Frankie, a blue-eyed black and white cat, gets into typical kitty mischief while also bringing joy to her humans, Rachel and Mike. A webcomic based on real life is the basis for this book, a collection of cute, sweet, and silly scenes rather than a story with an overarching plot. From sleepy snuggles to sassily stealing people food, Frankie is always lovable with her expressive face and oversized eyes. One series of scenes features duplicate panels of everyday activities such as using the bathroom, making dinner, and being on the computer, one side sans cat and the other with Frankie always in the way. Anyone who lives with a social cat will surely relate. Another scene shows Frankie stealing a hair tie, a favorite toy of cats everywhere. Crisp, vibrantly colored, mostly black-lined cartoon drawings are in panels, sometimes outlined, sometimes open, with ample white space throughout. Rachel presents white; Mike has light brown skin and black hair. This ode to a beloved pet delightfully highlights the joys of living with a feline companion.
Fluffy fun for cat lovers. (cat care tips, resources) (Graphic humor. 12-adult)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5493-0688-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Oni Press
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
A picture book of the damned—devoured quickly and savored for days.
In this wordless, black-and-white graphic novel, we visit an island surrounded by rough seas and populated by monsters that become increasingly familiar.
Simple but powerful images do all the talking as Donwood stylishly zooms across what looks like a spaghetti bowl of rolling striped waves toward a low-slung island on the horizon. A dense forest awaits onshore, and within its shadows lurks a pair of white pinprick eyes set within a vaguely humanoid shape, soon joined by a progressive menagerie of nasties—serpentine and dinosaur; seismic and torrential; twisted, technological, and cataclysmic. Donwood’s style is denuded and bold—stark whites and flat blacks, no shading, like a woodcut or stencil. He masterfully moves from one full-page image to the next, speaking in primal symbols (toothsome grins, lightning strikes, storm-tossed branches) that capture the island’s turbulent life cycle in the changes between pages—alternating between devastating and devastated, and haunted by the humanoid shadows with piercing eyes. He lingers on the most contemporary of monsters (deforestation, gathering dark clouds of pollution, downpours of ballistics), perhaps underscoring the depravity of our modern age. For all its terror and destruction, the book allows the faintest hint of optimism—or the worrying promise of a renewed cycle.
A picture book of the damned—devoured quickly and savored for days.Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-324-00185-0
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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