Blue Is the Warmest Color in Around the World in 80 Books

Sep 03, 2013 Vicky rated it liked it

Shelves: french, comics, lesbians

I like not getting what I want, I guess
I'm just reporting what the facts suggest
I read my journals
It appears I like torture a lot

—True words from Khaela Maricich, "I Tell Myself Everything"

What I look for when I read lesbian coming-of-age stories—excitement, prolonged sexual tension, total agony, embarrassment, possibly unrequited feelings, confusion, wanting to die, then something good might happen, then wanting to live (basically torture).

Julie Maroh tries to give the reader all those emo

I like not getting what I want, I guess
I'm just reporting what the facts suggest
I read my journals
It appears I like torture a lot

—True words from Khaela Maricich, "I Tell Myself Everything"

What I look for when I read lesbian coming-of-age stories—excitement, prolonged sexual tension, total agony, embarrassment, possibly unrequited feelings, confusion, wanting to die, then something good might happen, then wanting to live (basically torture).

Julie Maroh tries to give the reader all those emotions in Blue is the Warmest Color, but covering 15 whole years in 156 pages for me was fast-forwarding through a complex relationship and having no time to process anything! This story could have been serialized into a trilogy, or 5 volumes at least. Preferably 10 volumes. Then you could close the book and feel like the energy you gave left you feeling never the same again. I was hoping for that.

Clementine, 15 years old at the start, meets Emma, the one with the blue hair, who is I-forgot-how-old but an art major in college. There is also Clementine's parents: a sort of nice mom and a dad who is angrier, both homophobic. I really wanted this part to be told more fully. A lot of supporting characters could have been more fleshed out. Valentin, the loyal gay best friend who brings Clementine to her first gay bar. Sabine, Emma's girlfriend when she was with Clementine (d r a m a).

My first "problem" with the story is that it is founded upon "love at first sight." I'm not saying it's unreal or that I've never seen it happen, but for me it never develops into something this serious. Like, the first time Clementine meets Emma is on a crowded street. They make eye contact. Emma has her arm around Sabine as they walk. And for a long time, Clementine dreams of Emma, and goes through self-loathing and she's-a-girl, this-is-wrong type of thoughts.

They end up meeting again at the gay bar Valentin brings Clementine to, and you see them hanging out more but the getting-to-know-you parts are inserted into the story as glimpses! I was disappointed to catch only phrases of their conversations and the assumption that as a reader, I will fill in the rest and believe that they are truly bonding. Maybe this is my Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight fan p.o.v., but I want to know exactly what they're talking about. It would have been a great way to get insight into their hopes/dreams/voices/etc.

It took until pg. 91 for that "tight feeling of torture" to happen once. When Clem and Emma don't want to part from their day together yet, and they keep going around the same area until Clem says, "Why are we walking in circles? I know that you live in the next block." and they address the issue of Emma never inviting Clem to her place, and Emma later adding, "When you finally fall in love, that guy will be the luckiest man in the world." Omg, SO TRUE :( underlying tensions that the reader knows about but the characters don't, subtly + well-written.

Somewhat I appreciated the absurdity of the event near the end. Just how sudden. Quite real-seeming. But sad. Not really into the flashback nature of this book, though. It adds to the "melodrama" of the language, kind of romantic mushiness, which I'm not anti- about, but I did feel Clem and Emma fell into each other a little too easily.

I was really looking forward to seeing the 3-hour film adaptation next weekend, but I finally read up on the controversy between the director and the actors, and it grosses me out. I liked Julie Maroh's response to it. ...more

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Jun 02, 2022 Nadine in NY Jones rated it did not like it

Shelves: lotsa-buzz, graphic-novels-and-comics, translation, coming-of-age

I approach graphic novels as a sort of multimedia experience. The story, the art, the panels, the coloring, the lettering all need to come together to form a wonderful whole. This book let me down.

The lettering was thin and spidery and impossible for my old eyes to read - parts of it might as well have been still in French for all that I could see. Sometimes the dialogue bubbles were kitty corner to the speakers, which was confusing to follow. I switched to the e-book so I could zoom in on the I approach graphic novels as a sort of multimedia experience. The story, the art, the panels, the coloring, the lettering all need to come together to form a wonderful whole. This book let me down.

The lettering was thin and spidery and impossible for my old eyes to read - parts of it might as well have been still in French for all that I could see. Sometimes the dialogue bubbles were kitty corner to the speakers, which was confusing to follow. I switched to the e-book so I could zoom in on the words, and that's when the art smacked me in the face. I did NOT like the art. The people's faces look deformed.

I could look past my disappointment in the visual, but I didn’t much care for the story, either. It felt a bit basic, and the ending was so melodramatic. I appreciated the description of a young person questioning their sexuality identity, but that’s the only good thing here, for me. The characters were young, and I know drama is common when you’re a teen, but Clementine was so unfair to Emma. (view spoiler)

Don’t even get me started on the biphobic part of the plot.

It was pretty annoying that the story just suddenly jumps decades ahead, on one page Clementine was 17 and on the next page she was 30. I thought this book was about their relationship but we never got to see their relationship blossom and deepen. We just see the beginning and the end. Why? And why is blue the warmest color? ...more

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Mar 09, 2015 alana rated it it was amazing

Shelves: francais, females-and-feminists, graphic-novels, books-on-the-big-screen, art-school

Sweet heavenly Monday afternoons, the tears! Tragic love stories are not usually my jam, but Blue is the Warmest Color is a lovely book. High school Clementine sees a blue-haired young woman and her girlfriend strolling casually through Lille’s main square, and her life is never the same. Haunted by arousing and disturbing dreams, Clem begins to question her sexuality and seeks out advice from her guy friend Valentin who is slightly more comfortable with being gay. The two teenagers spend an eve ...more

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