Books 53-55
Squire by Sara Alfageeh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I need to stop reading cover promos because they set up false expectations, like I want to live inside this book forever. Yeah, no. Literally no. This is NOT a pretty world. I already live in a world of intolerance and the effects of colonialism, don't need another. And that is exactly what is the heart of this graphic novel.
Aiza as the book blurb says is from a conquered people and the only way to get equality (so she's been told) is to become a squire and then a knight in the Bayt-Sajji Empire. Her world is inspired by north Africa/the Middle East which is fitting if you look at the author and illustrator. We're getting their background and experience here and I do cheer them on for that.
Hiding the tattoos that mark her as Ornu, Aiza forges papers and enlists, making friends with a few from various backgrounds and at least one frenemy. General Hende makes it all sound so good, one strong united empire and that's how propaganda/imperialism works. Yes that's lovely if we all join as equals but that's not Aiza's world. The empire takes and takes and the more hidden side of war (famine, disease) is there just under the surface.
Aiza has no idea at first Hende is playing them all. All she knows is if she fails she's front line cannon fodder. A former knight, now minus an arm and relegated to janitorial work, helps train her but he knows through ugly experience what Aiza must learn for herself. The empire war machine could care less about her and her friends and she is fighting to be part of something that repels her at a base level.
What I liked about the ending is that it's not actually an ending all tied up in a neat bow. Because something like this isn't changed in one battle or one victory. What happens next? Maybe we'll find out some day. Maybe not. Aiza and her friends are interesting characters. And as much as I find her world ugly, this is a well told story and the art is amazing.
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Isola, Vol. 1 by Brenden Fletcher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
In all honesty three stars feels generous but the art was gorgeous. The story line, on the other hand, is a hot mess. Thank goodness for the blurb or I'm not even sure I'd have gotten as much out of it as I did. It seems to time jump and pov jump and it felt like someone took the linear narrative and tossed it in a blender and hit pulse.
THe Queen of Maar has been cursed and she's now a tiger-like creature and her captain of the guard/lover is trying to get her to the titular Isola, the island of the dead for reasons I can't fathom other than it'll break the curse? How? Who could tell? It also seems that the queen's brother had a role in this and that Rook, the captain, was something else before she fell for the queen and came her guard. There is a lot of politics in the back ground of this but they're as clear as mud.
It was a library read. If the library gets more, I'd read it but yeah, if I had bought this, I'd never have made it past the first issue
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Little Eve by Catriona Ward
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
It's more like a 2.5 star read for me as I found this repetitive and frankly a little boring but I wasn't sure how much of that is on me and my fractured reading time. This is a historical story in the earlier half of the 20th century where a 'family' is off the coast of Scotland on an island waiting for the end of the world more or less and thinking (in theory) that there is snake -god-whatever that gives them power.
It's centered over a couple of the women in the group, Dinah and the titular Eve. Content warning this is about a cult, child abuse, child sexual abuse, forced abortion, infanticide and generalized flipflopping narratives that took more energy than I had to give it to be honest.
Murders happen. Their interference with the town ends in killings. And honestly this was way overly long even though it wasn't that long of a novel. IMO this would have been better off as a novella, more tightly written instead of meandering back and forth through the years rehashing things.
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