The Straw King by Isabelle Dethan

This was a pretty good first part to a graphic novel that, as I understand, is being published in two halves.

Neith and Sennedjem are two of the pharaoh’s ‘lesser’ children. The fate that awaits them is for Sennedjem to be a servant to one of his older brothers and for Neitn to become her father’s concubine. Understandably, neither of them are thrilled at this prospect, so the runaway. They are caught immediately by slave traders and taken to the Babylonian palace as slaves.

Firstly, the art in this book was just lovely. It had a vivid watercolour feel to it and managed to evoke the Babylonian court perfectly, including the heat.

The plot was pretty interesting. I know almost nothing about Egyptian/Babylonian society from this period, so it did teach me a few things. There was a big jump, though, between escaping the pharoah’s palace and getting caught by the slave traders, which felt weird.

Neith was a great character, very strong and determined to save her brother. I kind of thought she’d be better off on her own (her brother was kind of helpless) but I admired her loyalty. I want to read the next book to find out what happens to her (although given the time period it’s set in, I can’t imagine her fate is nice).

This would have been better with the second part to the story bound with the first; as it is, the story stopped, just kind of stopped suddenly and now I have to wait to find out what happens next. 

4 stars