Reviews tagging 'Pedophilia'

Habibi by Craig Thompson

12 reviews

lgtl's review

dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Sexual violence, Rape, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Slavery, and Trafficking

smokeylives's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Trafficking, Pedophilia, Pregnancy, Sexual violence, Racism, Sexual harassment, Vomit, Rape, Sexual assault, Misogyny, Grief, and Slavery

badger_badger's review

challenging dark emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Read as a teenager but picked up again as I think some of its depth went over my head before. Beautiful and thoughtful book, interweaving stories from the Quran with the life stories of Dodola and Zam. It’s not something I’m familiar with from my background so I don’t know if it does it justice. The art is astounding and the.narrative has an engaging mix of pace jumping between reflections and then fantasy or adventure like qualities. 

The story is based a lot on Dodolas sexual objectification and how painful this is for her, as well has how Zam then battles with his own masculinity and sexuality (and the exploration of sexuality, purity, love etc is very well done). From this, one qualm with the book is that the way Dodola is drawn throughout feels gratuitous at times, even at some horrific moments or when she’s a child it feels as if she’s still been drawn to cater to the readers aesthetic pleasure. It might have been to represent how those in the book viewed her but I found it uncomfortable at times to say the least. At time I also felt that it might be a bit orientalist and that some of the exploration of race/racism falls a bit flat. 

The exploration of environmental destruction though and how this weaves through and ties together the different aspects of the book to be it the religious stories, different forms of exploitation, the characters stories/inner world/ etc is pretty interesting and makes the book feel like a modern day fable. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Kidnapping, Abortion, Racism, Pedophilia, Slavery, Addiction, Abandonment, Sexual assault, and Suicide attempt

okayjivan's review

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I loved this book but it’s a bit hard to get behind seeing that Thompson is not muslim at all. This might not be his story to tell that being said the drawings are stunning 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Kidnapping, Addiction, Trafficking, Sexual violence, Pedophilia, and Violence

imartine's review

challenging medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

The fact that the author is a white man and the two main characters are people of color makes me feel like there is some type of misrepresentation going on. The illustration and image composition is beautiful, but there is a heavy amount of sexual content that feels more like it’s forced on the characters than a part of their lives. The author is a white man, who I believe did his research, but no amount of research can make his lived experience equivalent and justify his use of these characters. My personal belief is that white folks should not use the n-word in any way ever, and this author did write it out.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Excrement, Medical trauma, Sexual violence, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual content, Body horror, Addiction, Physical abuse, War, Fatphobia, Gore, Chronic illness, Sexism, Alcohol, Animal death, Trafficking, Child death, Gaslighting, Pregnancy, Emotional abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Torture, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, Blood, Death of parent, Adult/minor relationship, Cultural appropriation, Body shaming, Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Classism, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Death, Grief, Kidnapping, Pedophilia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Slavery, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Violence, and Vomit

whatisjordyreading's review

dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Vomit, Physical abuse, Excrement, Sexual violence, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Homophobia, Sexual content, Animal death, Blood, Body shaming, Child death, Death, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Sexism, Sexual assault, Slavery, Classism, Domestic abuse, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Murder, Rape, Pedophilia, Racism, Trafficking, and Transphobia

Moderate: Confinement and Fatphobia

fools_egg's review

Agree with most reviews: I read when I was young and just discovered Craig Thompson.
Definitely a white dude just exploiting racist stereotypes and tropes to create a traumatizing read. 
Write what you know. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Pedophilia, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Trafficking, Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Violence, Xenophobia, Physical abuse, Misogyny, and Cultural appropriation

itzsupergirl's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexual harassment, Racial slurs, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Classism, Body shaming, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual content, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Trafficking, Sexual assault, Rape, Pedophilia, Medical trauma, Toxic relationship, Slavery, Sexual violence, Racism, Pregnancy, Misogyny, Homophobia, and Fatphobia

carleesi's review

Opening with the rape of a child (who was hyper sexualised in the way she was drawn) made me so uncomfortable that I came to check other reviews and found that rape and mistreatment of women is a common theme in this book so I just don’t need to keep reading. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Child abuse, and Pedophilia

littlecake's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Eventhough Habibi has beautifull art and is filled with lots of research on Muslim myths and Arabic language, the author's orientalist gaze made me deeply uncomfortable. I almost DNF this book so many times but out of curiosity and to criticise it adequately, I finished it.

So many things are wrong with this graphic novel so let me list a few :

• The orientalist interpretation on the main female character Dodola : she is constantly reduice to her sexuality. In the book, she goes through sexual exploitation and yet, the rape scenes are graphically deepicted again and again. Even during these scenes, her body is showed in an esthethic way, which is highly disturbing... In these pages, the panels with Dodola naked are more numerous then her with clothes... Even as a child she is shown using her sensuality. Westerners still exotise Muslim and/or arabic women and have a fantasy to unveil them (read Fanon or Said's work on that). This representation is highly rooted in sexism, orientalism and colonialism.
• The relationship between the main characters is disturbing and toxic on many levels. From Dodola being Zam's maternal figure to then being the object of his lust.. I mean it's such a creepy fondation for any love story...
• The story takes place in a fictional land called Wanatolia. This country is a mix of all brown people together. It has arabic language like Maghreb, a Sultan like Ottoman Empire, Hijras and salwar kameez like India, Slavery and so on. Again this emphasizes Thompson's Orientalist gaze : all this countries with so many different cultures, languages and interpretations of Islam are just crushed together in one joyous mix. Ultimately all brown people are the same.
• There is no positive representation of a male arabic/brown character. All of them are just lusty barbaric people, which reinforces stereotypes. Furthermore, these characters are caricatured (big or pointy noses, long beards, etc). 
• Eventhough the myths are nicely drawn, some interpretations or representations made me uncomfortable. I understand that Thompson is not a believer, but when you pretend to be fascinated by someone's culture then you should respect it while representating it. Showing prophets face or showing them lusting is honestly disrespectful to so many faiths. 

Honestly I could go on and on and pin point specific scenes or problems. But in the end, my conclusion would be the same : this is a book filled with white gaze, orientalist  stereotypes and sexism. It's yet another example that own voices books matter.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Islamophobia, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Pregnancy, War, Child abuse, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Slavery

Moderate: Transphobia

Minor: Suicidal thoughts