I’d been hearing quite a lot about Craig Thompson’s graphic novel, Habibi. I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy, which was beautiful. But gnawed at me.

So I wrote a review! It’s the first thing I’ve written in awhile, and it’s up at Racialicious:

Themes of longing and survival permeate Habibi. The protagonists, Zam and Dodola, long for each other, likening this to a yearning for the Divine – Middle Eastern poets have done this for centuries. Zam and Dodola endure horrible events in the name of survival, perhaps tying in with Thompson’s conservationist theme by implying that our disregard for the earth is tantamount to rape and castration of the planet. These themes, however, are often drowned out—no matter how much Thompson underlines them—by the towering gaffes of his misrepresentation. The country of Wanatolia may be fiction, but the cultures it mimics and clumsily muddles together are real.

A lot of my colleagues have reviewed it, as well, and I include their reviews in my piece. So check it out!