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A review by meepelous
Blue Is the Warmest Color by Jul Maroh
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Today is my inaugural Translation Tuesday and we are kicking things off with a kind of unpopular opinion on Blue is the warmest Color by Julie Maroh.
Warnings for homophobia, chronic illness, character death, cheating, high school/college age gap romance, and nudity - both sexual and non sexual.
According to wikipedia, Julie Maroh is a nonbinary lesbian from northern France. And according to Goodreads they live in Brussels.
Most surprisingly, in doing research for this review, I discovered that among other things they are responsible for the art in my upcoming and anticipated read You Brought Me the Ocean by Alex Sanchez.
But yeah, Blue Is The Warmest Colour. It's been out for a minute so I'm not even going to think about not being spoilerful. What happens?
Before jumping to the main story, we start with a brief but tense vignette centered around a woman dealing with the death of her partner. Partner's mother appears to be trying to make nice, but partner's father blames women for the death of his daughter.
Moving onto the main story line, Clementine is a sophomore in high school who is failing to have sex with her boyfriend. He seems like a nice enough guy, but something doesn't feel right. One day she goes out with a friend who has just come out to her as gay and Clementine ends up at a lesbian bar where she runs into a woman who inspired sexual dreams in her at the start of the book. Romantic interest Emma is an art student dating a woman named Sabine - a short while later Emma gets Clementine in trouble with all her very homophobic friends at school by showing up and giving everyone the distinct feeling that Clem is a lesbian.
Time goes on. Clementine finds a new equilibrium friends wise but still isn't sure about her sexuality. Shows up randomly at Emma's apartment asking why Emma never brings her home, they have sex. Time goes on. Emma does actually break up with Sabine, ends up at Clem's parent's house with her for a sleepover. Emma gets caught wandering around Clementine's parent's house naked by said parents and both women are kicked out immediately for partaking in such sinful behavior. Clem finds new family with Emma's more accepting parents.
Jump in time until Clem is 30 and she cheats on Emma for the last time and gets kicked out of her apartment. Clementine's health is clearly not going well. Eventually Clem's gay best friend of yore convinces Emma to take her back. The two women have sex at the beach and Clementine collapses. Homophobic doctors will only convey medical information at Clementine's still estranged and homophobic parents. Clementine slowly fades away and dies. Leading to the events depicted at the start of the book.
Finishing this book and flipping over to Goodreads I was honestly more then a little surprised by how positively reviewed this book was, although on second thought it does make more then a little sense. For one, this is a much hyped classic and as far as I can see very much a front runner in the realm of queer comic representation. It's also an own voices title that has received a lot of recognition and is generally seen as a much better version compared to the movie (which I still have yet to see) which apparently featured prosthetic vaginas?
But yeah, as I said already, this book felt like a bit of a miss for me.I think this had to do primarily with the age gap, especially since the older character was cheating on their partner, and the way Clementine dies at the end. Does that mean no one can enjoy it, by no means. I contend that queer comics were in a very different point when it was published, and especially with the age gap, fiction is fiction is fiction. But that held it back for me.
The art was also a bit of a mixed bag for me. I feel like I'm pretty open minded when it comes to styles, trying not to judge things as unskilled that are just a style not to my taste, but this definitely felt a bit rough to me.
Looking forward to their more recent work on You Brought Me The Ocean (another heavily blue title) does reveal a lot more refinement on the same style. So I'm very excited to crack that open soon.
The use of colour was very creative and interesting.
Going through my list of intersections that I try and highlight. Sexuality and gender were obviously a focus of this book and it does that to a pretty interesting effect. Both the sexual and unsexual nudity is done really well in my opinion.
Race was definitely overlooked and money and other class signifiers are also never brought up.
Disability is obviously brought up at the end of the book when it turns out the main character has a chronic disease. And while I'm certainly not a judge for this sort of thing, the inclusion of this death did feel a bit cheap and manipulative too. Like, what to do with her homophobic parents? Well if Clem dies they'll be sorry. Plus it kind of continues the binary where people are either able bodied or dead.
So yeah, that's why I'm rating this book three out of five stars. For now. I'm wondering if it should be two, but we shall see. I can see what other people take from this book, particularly since it was published back in 2013, what feels like a lifetime ago. I certainly was in a very different place, at that point, myself.
Warnings for homophobia, chronic illness, character death, cheating, high school/college age gap romance, and nudity - both sexual and non sexual.
According to wikipedia, Julie Maroh is a nonbinary lesbian from northern France. And according to Goodreads they live in Brussels.
Most surprisingly, in doing research for this review, I discovered that among other things they are responsible for the art in my upcoming and anticipated read You Brought Me the Ocean by Alex Sanchez.
But yeah, Blue Is The Warmest Colour. It's been out for a minute so I'm not even going to think about not being spoilerful. What happens?
Before jumping to the main story, we start with a brief but tense vignette centered around a woman dealing with the death of her partner. Partner's mother appears to be trying to make nice, but partner's father blames women for the death of his daughter.
Moving onto the main story line, Clementine is a sophomore in high school who is failing to have sex with her boyfriend. He seems like a nice enough guy, but something doesn't feel right. One day she goes out with a friend who has just come out to her as gay and Clementine ends up at a lesbian bar where she runs into a woman who inspired sexual dreams in her at the start of the book. Romantic interest Emma is an art student dating a woman named Sabine - a short while later Emma gets Clementine in trouble with all her very homophobic friends at school by showing up and giving everyone the distinct feeling that Clem is a lesbian.
Time goes on. Clementine finds a new equilibrium friends wise but still isn't sure about her sexuality. Shows up randomly at Emma's apartment asking why Emma never brings her home, they have sex. Time goes on. Emma does actually break up with Sabine, ends up at Clem's parent's house with her for a sleepover. Emma gets caught wandering around Clementine's parent's house naked by said parents and both women are kicked out immediately for partaking in such sinful behavior. Clem finds new family with Emma's more accepting parents.
Jump in time until Clem is 30 and she cheats on Emma for the last time and gets kicked out of her apartment. Clementine's health is clearly not going well. Eventually Clem's gay best friend of yore convinces Emma to take her back. The two women have sex at the beach and Clementine collapses. Homophobic doctors will only convey medical information at Clementine's still estranged and homophobic parents. Clementine slowly fades away and dies. Leading to the events depicted at the start of the book.
Finishing this book and flipping over to Goodreads I was honestly more then a little surprised by how positively reviewed this book was, although on second thought it does make more then a little sense. For one, this is a much hyped classic and as far as I can see very much a front runner in the realm of queer comic representation. It's also an own voices title that has received a lot of recognition and is generally seen as a much better version compared to the movie (which I still have yet to see) which apparently featured prosthetic vaginas?
But yeah, as I said already, this book felt like a bit of a miss for me.
The art was also a bit of a mixed bag for me. I feel like I'm pretty open minded when it comes to styles, trying not to judge things as unskilled that are just a style not to my taste, but this definitely felt a bit rough to me.
Looking forward to their more recent work on You Brought Me The Ocean (another heavily blue title) does reveal a lot more refinement on the same style. So I'm very excited to crack that open soon.
The use of colour was very creative and interesting.
Going through my list of intersections that I try and highlight. Sexuality and gender were obviously a focus of this book and it does that to a pretty interesting effect. Both the sexual and unsexual nudity is done really well in my opinion.
Race was definitely overlooked and money and other class signifiers are also never brought up.
Disability is obviously brought up at the end of the book when it turns out
So yeah, that's why I'm rating this book three out of five stars. For now. I'm wondering if it should be two, but we shall see. I can see what other people take from this book, particularly since it was published back in 2013, what feels like a lifetime ago. I certainly was in a very different place, at that point, myself.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Homophobia, and Sexual content
Moderate: Infidelity, Medical content, and Grief