Akiva Reads

Habibi

by Craig Thompson

Really well written, exquisitely drawn, but so much violence, especially sexual. Racist caricatures that are sometimes problematized and sometimes... not. Rushed through because I wanted to be done with it. Idk.

EDIT: Ok, probably the best way to sum up sexuality in this book is that we get multiple explicit rape scenes (maybe more than a dozen? I'm not going to go back and count), and also Thompson refuses to show Zam's genitalia in the big reveal and discussion of his eunuch status towards the end. How revealing of what he finds unspeakably horrifying violence....

Hard to rate because of how mixed the experience is. I wish Thompson had gotten some outside feedback before he spent 6 years on this mess.