Blue is the Warmest Color - Julie Maroh

Summary

In this tender, bittersweet, full-colour graphic novel, a young woman named Clémentine discovers herself and the elusive magic of love when she meets a confident blue-haired girl named Emma: a lesbian love story for the ages that bristles with the energy of youth and rebellion and the eternal light of desire.

First published in French by Belgium's Glénat, the book has won several awards, including the Audience Prize at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, Europe's largest.

Julie Maroh is an author and illustrator originally from northern France.

~~~

I have to say that this has become one of my favourite graphic novels of all time. The story whole-heartedly encapsulates attraction, first love and identity. The book is a diary of Clémentine's life from the early years of her adolescence all through her life and it is an amazing coming of age story. The illustrations serve the story in such a way that you see Clémentine's feelings bubbling up on the page. The use of colour as well as the emphasis put on perspective makes you see things through Clémentine's eyes, allowing you to watch her life unravel (and also ravel - which really should be a word), from her point of view.

Everything seems pretty good for Clémentine at first but when she meets Emma, her world turns upside down. She has to deal with her feelings and the fact that they don't seem to have any sort of relation to what her brain tells her she should feel. Clémentine has never been attracted to a girl before and she has some issues when dealing with it at first. I do think this is one of the best "coming out" type of stories (though I do dislike the term) because it shows you in words and images the effect such a realisation has on a person. It's as if you've lived all your life with an image of you, of life, of things, of everything and all of a sudden your life and this image, this certainty you've had all your life don't match up. And you find yourself having to choose between your heart and your mind and it is sometimes the hardest thing you will have to go through because either way you go, you could feel you are betraying yourself. 

I don't really want to say more about the book because I read it without knowing much and I cried big fat ugly tears from the first pages and I felt I was right there with Clémentine while she was going through these moments. 

I've read it in French but the English version is out in September this year from Arsenal Pulp Press and the film based on the opening chapters of the book has found a UK distributor (Curzon) so it should be in UK indie cinemas soon. The film has been praised by the critics and won the Palme d'Or at the Festival de Cannes but has received quite a lot of criticism over the shooting conditions and the fact that the director didn't thank the author, Julie Maroh, in his acceptance speech. Julie Maroh has written a blog post about the film and has pointed out the lack of realism of the love scenes as well as her issues with the film in general, so do give the graphic novel a chance whether you like the film or not.

Guest Post of Sobibor by Jean Molla @ Once Upon a Bookcase!

Hello everyone,

Since I am busy being a movie star nowadays, I won't be updating my blog a lot - I know, I can hear the "ooooh noo!" from here (yes, yes, I can). 

But fear not faithful reader!

You can go check out a guest post (what am I saying, the one and only first guest post I have written) I wrote for the wonderful Jo @ Once Upon a Bookcase here! I am really excited because this is the first guest post I have written (and because I get excited regularly for no reason)!

It is part of the Body Image and Self Perception Month (of which you should know all about by now, otherwise I am highly shocked!) and on a book called Sobibor, written by French YA (though not exclusively) writer Jean Molla about a young anorexic girl and some events which occured during the Second World War in the extermination camp of Sobibor in Poland.

Have a lovely end of week people!

x Caroline

Lost in Translation #3 - Eye of the Wolf by Daniel Pennac

Hello wonderful readers !

Welcome to yet another article of the Lost in Translation meme ! Ok so it's the third, but still... :-D
And YES, I have invested in Photoshop to make a new logo! Admit it, you're already in love with it, right ?

This meme, hosted here, is organised to appeal to the curious international reader in you to discover foreign authors and even encourage you to read some books in their original language ! How exciting !

For a presentation of the meme, you can go here or email me here (I am very nice and though I have a slight infatuation with werewolves, I don't bite. Much.)

The meme has a few rules:

- Check if the book is translated in English and available (country and online/bookstores) and specify it in your post

- It would be nice to follow the "Language Corner" where you say to which level the book is suitable for the people who want to read the book in its original language

- And finally: Enjoy and Spread the love !

Are my eyes deceiving me? Could this be a wolf ? YAY !

So I will be writing a post on French Young Adult writer superstar Daniel Pennac. He has written many books for the 8+ and 12+ age range. He is massively studied in French schools. He has also written a few essays on school and how subjects are teached there. He is a very well known and praised personality in children literature in France.

Eye of the Wolf 

by Daniel Pennac

I don't usually review books in this age range, but I still like how those writers describe very profound issues with the simplest words. I am sure you've already had a conversation with a child about important issues and have been wondering how that freckled kid could understand some things way better than you do and don't understand why you have to be so complicated about everything ?
Sometimes, you just learn listening to those kids and their vision of the world (and other times, after watching a Dora episode for the 50th time, you might not). Eye of the Wolf was published in 1984 in France but was only translated and published in English in 2003.




Born worlds apart, a wolf from Alaska and a boy from Africa share their extraordinary stories in this magical tale from master storyteller Daniel Pennac, translated by award-winning translator Sarah Adams. The wolf has lost nearly everything on his journey to the zoo - including his eye and his beloved pack. The boy has lost nearly everything too, and seen many terrible things. As they face each other on either side of the wolf's enclosure they share their stories in this captivating, mysterious and utterly unforgettable tale. Summary from Amazon.


This story has reminded me a lot of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. In the shortest book, you discover worlds you never thought existed and get to see animals in a different light. It is the type of book where children read one thing and adults read the same thing on another level and they can exchange ideas on the book. As a philosophical tale, the book can be read by anyone, from 8 to 88 years old (I mean, people above 88 can read it too, it's just an expression), and still be appreciated.

I like how the wolf and the boy both suffer from the cruelty of men. I find it to be an interesting twist that a harsh life would be thrust upon a strong animal and a harmless baby in more or less the same way.

I also like how the issue of industrialisation and its consequences on nature are hinted from the perspective of the animals. And each animal portrayed in the book is very well developed and interesting, from the fun personalities of the Alaskan wolves to the rich personalities of the African animals.

I find that there is a message of hope given in the book where friendship is possible between two different species who can hunt/eat each other. This friendship is reached through knowledge and communication. The wolf and the boy come from different worlds, but they can lean on each other. Yes, I love this song (Lean on me) and secretly want you to love it too. I find it very sweet that the boy chooses to close one eye to be on equal grounds with the wolf.

The French edition I read had very cute illustrations every few pages, the British and American editions don't have exactly the same (the illustrator differs), but hopefully, they are just as beautiful !


It is a very easy read and it is such a beautiful and touching story that anyone can read the book and fall in love for all its amazing characters. It is also the type of book that both a child and a parent can read and where they can talk about it together (which would be quite the whole point of the book, you know, friendship, family, love, all that).


Language Corner:
This book, being meant for a young audience, is a very easy read. If you haven't practiced your French in a while, it is a good way to start again with a simple yet entertaining story.


Where to find the book:
UK: Waterstones, Amazon
USA: Barnes and Nobles, Amazon

To take part in the meme :

- Write your name

- The name of your blog

- In parenthesis if it is the first, second time or more you participate

- In parenthesis which language it is

- Link to the LiT post, not your blog !

Exemple: Caroline @ Portrait of a Woman (3, French)

If what you post doesn't look like that, I will retaliate. Live in fear.

No and Me - Delphine de Vigan

I've been wanting to read this book for a while and it never seemed like a good time. I have been feeling quite down last week (unemployment is not really my friend) and haven't been able to read anything at all, even werewolves stories didn't appeal to me *blasphemy*. Anyways, Sunday I picked up this book and I just fell in love with the story and its characters.

No and Me is the story of 13 years old Lou Bertignac who has an IQ of 160 and a good friend in class rebel Lucas. At home her father puts a brave face on things but cries in secret in the bathroom, while her mother rarely speaks and hardly ever leaves the house. To escape this desolate world, Lou goes often to train stations to see the big emotions in the smiles and tears of arrival and departure. But there she also sees the homeless, meets a girl called No, only a few years older than herself, and decides to make homelessness the topic of her class presentation. Bit by bit, Lou and No become friends until, the project over, No disappears. Heartbroken, Lou asks her parents the unaskable question and her parents say: Yes, No can come to live with them. So Lou goes down into the underworld of Paris's street people to bring her friend up to the light of a home and family life, she thinks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Do you know this feeling when you unexpectedly hear a song you love, when you smell your favorite cake from when you were a kid, or when the person that makes your heart beat looks at you ? This is the feeling you'll get reading this book. This is the story you never thought you would read and yet you'll just be falling for it.

The writing is so heart-breakingly pure, full of silent emotions, that you find yourself having feelings for all the characters from the very beginning. 

Delphine de Vigan explained (here) that in the first version of the book, she only talked about No and her life, and didn't go in depth with the character of Lou. In this second version of the book, Lou becomes the main character and gains a real personality and consistency. It is fascinating to read her relationship with her family, or rather, what is left of it after a tragedy that happened when Lou was 8. Lou grows up without her mother, too broken by grief, and her father, doing what he can to save the family. Lou is very young but very mature at the same time, and I think that Delphine de Vigan describes this ambiguity very well.


Lou likes Lucas, her complete opposite (older than his classmates and not very good at school), who seems to like her back. Even though it first appeared to me as a strange relationship, their differences grew on me and I realised it was the very reason why they were attracted to each other. They weren't like any other high school student in their class. And, according to Lou, they both knew the power of words.

The plot is simple, without superfluous and random characters and events. Every character has a place in the plot and evolves through the story. And what a beautiful and touching story it is.


The meaning is important as well, too many people are living in the streets and are not shown enough compassion. "It's their fault, if they were nicer and cleaner, everyone would help them" says Lou at one point without thinking it. This book works also as a sociological study of people living in the streets, women in particular through the character of No, and what it is like: the fear, the wait, the lack of trust etc. No is an incredible character and the bond she has with Lou is very well written.

I would advise this book to everyone. It is too easy nowadays to forget how lucky most of us are. We have everything we need, and even a lot of things we don't need. A little humility can't hurt anyone... especially when it is written with such talent. 
And I'm not saying that because she's French ;-)

Delphine de Vigan in London !

Following my post on the talk with No and Me French author Delphine de Vigan, I am posting now what was said !

FYI: I bought the French version of the book and she signed it in French

No and Me Amazon summary:

Lou Bertignac has an IQ of 160 and a good friend in class rebel Lucas. At home her father puts a brave face on things but cries in secret in the bathroom, while her mother rarely speaks and hardly ever leaves the house. To escape this desolate world, Lou goes often to Gare d'Austerlitz to see the big emotions in the smiles and tears of arrival and departure. But there she also sees the homeless, meets a girl called No, only a few years older than herself, and decides to make homelessness the topic of her class presentation. Bit by bit, Lou and No become friends until, the project over, No disappears. Heartbroken, Lou asks her parents the unaskable question and her parents say: Yes, No can come to live with them. So Lou goes down into the underworld of Paris's street people to bring her friend up to the light of a home and family life, she thinks.

      Delphine de Vigan is a very laid back and inspired writer, it is very interesting to hear her talk about various subjects. She had been working full time for her first four books, writing only at night, and has now quit. She used to work in companies and analyse the work relations between employees. No and Me is her fourth novel but her first and only book for Young Adult.

      By the way, the entire genre of YA books is actually not very developed in France, there are books for children, some books for teenagers and then adult books. YA books are very hard to classify, that's why they get printed by 'adult books' publishers, because there are no publishers specifically specialised in YA. Even if the genre is gaining momentum, it is still very limited to very popular books like Twilight or Harry Potter, and doesn't reach public recognition, in the sense that most adults and book critics wouldn't know that it constitutes a genre in itself and thousands of YA books are published worldwide every year.
      No and Me has been published and marketed in France as an 'Adult Book' at first but was also included into school curriculums. It was actually clear during the talk, that Delphine de Vigan herself didn't know exactly how to classify the book, saying that it isn't because the main character is 13, that the book is made for children, and that her publishers had some discussions about how to present the book to the public.

On the writing style

      Delphine de Vigan explained that it had been a choice, very early on, not to try to mimic the language of young people. First because it would have been completely ridiculous: she doesn't speak like this, and it would have been hard to present anything credible. But also because she thinks that most of the kids are today "bilingual" when it comes to the French (or English, or other) language and their own expressions and ways of communicating. So even teenagers would understand a normal use of the language. It's also a way of making the story timeless in the sense that the teen slang she would have used would become outdated in a few months.
      What she describes in the book are actually real places with sometimes real homeless people that are 'famous' in their parts of Paris. She wanted to give a sense of reality to the story. Delphine de Vigan made a lot of research with social workers, also by talking to homeless women to give that sense of reality to the story. 

On the character of Lou

      Delphine de Vigan told us that she had written a first version of the book, and that upon reading it, her editor told her she had done only half of the work and that she needed to develop the character of Lou. It was her fourth novel, and it was the first time she had this reaction from her editor. After thinking about it, she realised that her editor was right. She had meant to write the story to raise awareness on the situation of homeless people, especially young women, but from the point of view of another character. So she rewrote completely her novel to give more space to Lou to actually become a character of its own. Which makes that now the story is also about Lou and not just about No.
      She used the characteristic of being precocious to isolate Lou from other characters. She is tiny compared to all the persons in her class, they call her "the brain", she doesn't have many friends etc. She also liked the idea of the love story between Lou and her complete opposite Lucas.
      Delphine de Vigan did get some inspiration from her life, especially concerning that sense of exclusion, that is very common among teenagers. 

On the response she received

      Delphine de Vigan explained how she had completely different responses as to what the book meant. Some people said it was very grim and dark, because it talks about a young homeless girl ; and others thought it was funny and light saying that it presented this homeless issue in a very sensitive way. 

      She also pointed that she had very mixed reactions depending on the age of her readers. Her young readers would get completely the contrary from the adult readers. Fo rinstance, of the twenty something people there were at the talk, only a handful (me!) were in their twenties, and the rest were people in their forties and above.


So technically, I haven't read the book yet, so I can't advise you to read it now, but I will post a review soon.

On the other hand, Becky @ The Bookette did read the book and wrote an amazing review on No and Me, so you can check it out here !


Cheers!