Book Review: Habibi

Submitted by  Teoh Yi Chie on  December 11, 2011 - 2:50 pm

Habibi - 01


I was slightly intimidated by how thick the book is in my hand, 672 pages in all. But before I knew it, I had finished reading it in one sitting.

Habibi is a beautifully woven tale about love and longing. The story is about two kids, Dodola and Zam, who found each other in a slave trade, how they survive during their childhood only to lose each other, and finally reunite many years later. It reminds me of the film Slumdog Millionaire and for the similar feeling it evokes.

Craig Thompson paces the story really well, taking time to develop the characters, to let the story unfold unexpectedly. The art is beautiful. There must have been tons of research done. The environment are rich with Arabic scripts, symbols and signs, from the clothes to the buildings. The style of art reminds me of Will Eisner, in particular the use of just black and white with no grays, and the composition and blending of visual imagery inside panels.

The story deals with mature themes so it's not for everyone. There's slavery, sexual slavery, poverty and the prejudice. It's harsh but believable. The small part on religion comes from the stories Dodola tells to Zam. They are nicely intermingled with the main story. There's nothing preachy and the story always comes first.

Craig Thompson has done an amazing job crafting this heartfelt story. This book should be one of the top 10 graphic novels of 2011.

Highly recommended.

Habibi is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

Habibi - 02

Habibi - 03

Habibi - 04

Habibi - 05

Habibi - 06

Habibi - 07

Habibi - 08

Habibi - 09

Habibi - 10

Habibi - 11

Visit Amazon to check out more reviews.

If you buy from the links, I get a little commission that helps me get more books to feature.

Here are direct links to the book:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp | Amazon.cn

Tags
comic book reviews
craig thompson
pantheon

Comments

rachel (not verified) Sat, 17 Dec 2011 - 18:44

Couldn't put it better myself.

I had to take a long breather to digest it all after I finished reading it in one sitting ... and then running out to buy "Blankets".

Definitely, very highly recommended :-)

Add new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
About text formats

Filtered HTML

  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For Comment Notification, please choose "All comments". "Replies to my comment" does not work.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------