In technical terms, this book is excellent. The story draws the reader in from the first few pages, introducing interesting, colourful, believable characters, and showing us a worrying mystery that we will want to see solved. The artwork is engaging and attractive, and tells the story well, with easy-to-distinguish characters, detailed interiors, and effective facial expressions. If you want to know how to write a compelling graphic novel, check this one out.
Spoilers below.
I have some problems with the treatment of the subject matter, though. This book treats as normal the horrific experiences that prostituted women go through. Overall the book simply feels like a snapshot of real life from the point of view of someone ignorant of the emotional and physical toll repeated sexual abuse wreaks on a human being. Prostitution, in this book, is treated as basically acceptable and inevitable, rather than the hate crime against women that it actually is, and I find that extremely objectionable.
One positive thing about all of this is purely accidental: the book depicts a member of a royal family abusing prostitutes, which is of course, what royalty have historically done and continue to do, but which has not been talked about due to class privilege. However, the only reason this was done is because the writer is French and the royalty he depicted was British, so it's only a manifestation of the continuing petty feud between these peoples.
To be fair, the writer also depicts a French policeman and government ministers frequenting a house of prostitution, but again, this is depicted as normal and inevitable, and somehow "different" from the violent psychopathic beatings unleashed by the British monarch, when, in actual fact, buying a prostitute is always rape.
I was also irritated by the insinuation that Josephine Baker was actually male and that she ever worked as a prostitute. She was female and an entertainer. There is also a racist joke tossed in at the Josephine character, aimed at "him" by a white character. It's left in a vague grey area, where we can't tell which side the author takes - is he a racist himself, or not? This is a serious problem. Josephine Baker was a civil rights activist and this depiction of her is insulting.
Adding yet another annoyance to this long list, the female characters are clearly lesbian or bisexual in some cases, but the only remotely healthy and good lesbian relationship is thrown away when the author kills off one of the women in question (the woman who is treated the worst throughout the book, no less). I very much want a fix-it fanfic for this story that allows the lesbians to live and be happy.
The lack of a firm moral stance, blase misogyny and racism, and lack of any real empathy for the female characters is the outstanding issue with this book. 2.5 stars.
Spoilers below.
I have some problems with the treatment of the subject matter, though. This book treats as normal the horrific experiences that prostituted women go through. Overall the book simply feels like a snapshot of real life from the point of view of someone ignorant of the emotional and physical toll repeated sexual abuse wreaks on a human being. Prostitution, in this book, is treated as basically acceptable and inevitable, rather than the hate crime against women that it actually is, and I find that extremely objectionable.
One positive thing about all of this is purely accidental: the book depicts a member of a royal family abusing prostitutes, which is of course, what royalty have historically done and continue to do, but which has not been talked about due to class privilege. However, the only reason this was done is because the writer is French and the royalty he depicted was British, so it's only a manifestation of the continuing petty feud between these peoples.
To be fair, the writer also depicts a French policeman and government ministers frequenting a house of prostitution, but again, this is depicted as normal and inevitable, and somehow "different" from the violent psychopathic beatings unleashed by the British monarch, when, in actual fact, buying a prostitute is always rape.
I was also irritated by the insinuation that Josephine Baker was actually male and that she ever worked as a prostitute. She was female and an entertainer. There is also a racist joke tossed in at the Josephine character, aimed at "him" by a white character. It's left in a vague grey area, where we can't tell which side the author takes - is he a racist himself, or not? This is a serious problem. Josephine Baker was a civil rights activist and this depiction of her is insulting.
Adding yet another annoyance to this long list, the female characters are clearly lesbian or bisexual in some cases, but the only remotely healthy and good lesbian relationship is thrown away when the author kills off one of the women in question (the woman who is treated the worst throughout the book, no less). I very much want a fix-it fanfic for this story that allows the lesbians to live and be happy.
The lack of a firm moral stance, blase misogyny and racism, and lack of any real empathy for the female characters is the outstanding issue with this book. 2.5 stars.
