[Angie]

Went ahead and made one, I don't think reviews are really my strength but whatever will get the ball rolling. I don't know if we wanna do a number scale or anything but yeah.


Habibi



Habibi is a story about two children that were former slaves, and their relationship as they grew up together. The two are separated and spend much of the book trying to reunite. The rest of the book is devoted to their lives prior to being separated, as well as the stories the woman once told the boy.

I'm going to guess that judging by most of our audience, most of you have probably heard of the book "Blankets". If it doesn't sound familiar to you, you've probably seen a comic with a snowy blue cover with a couple embracing on the cover displayed prominently in your local book store’s graphic novel section. Well, if you haven’t heard of Habibi, it’s another book done by Craig Thompson, who was the author of Blankets.

Despite the fact that I was a fan of Blankets, I had had no idea this book existed until I read about it on the EnterVOID forums. It definitely hasn’t gotten the attention that its predecessor got and I can sort of see why.  I won’t use this review to compare the two the whole time, but I will be up front that I found Blankets to be superior to Habibi. But that’s not to say Habibi wasn’t without its strengths.

Habibi is a gorgeous book that is filled to the brim with lush detail and fluid linework. Thompson is definitely a master at brushes, and I don’t think there was a page in this book that I didn’t find visually impressive. One of the unique things about this book is the use of letters to create beautiful designs, there’s no shortage of pages devoted to written words.

Habibi’s weaknesses however lie in the story. At its heart it is a love story, but I felt there were times Thompson didn’t really know what he wanted to do with it. I had a hard time initially getting into it because it felt as though the stories the character was telling didn’t connect with what was going on in the main story. I won’t spoil anything, but it was around two thirds into the book that Thompson seemed to be running out of ideas.

That’s not to say it was bad, I did mostly enjoy the story and loved the main characters, it just could have stood to be a bit shorter. As much as I enjoyed the book, I can say it’s definitely not for everyone. There is quite a bit of explicit content which might scare some readers away. (and there is a lot of it)

As a whole I do highly recommend Habibi, especially if you’re a fan of tragedy. But it might be best to read it in chunks instead of in one sitting as I did.

Quality 9
Creativity 9
Entertainment 6