Review by Booklist Review
Lucille is an angry divorcee's daughter, Arthur an alcoholic fisherman's elder son. She develops anorexia, while he resists his father's efforts to get him on a fishing crew. They meet in a hospital where she's a patient, and he's with his father. After she's home, and he's delivering for a pharmacist, they really meet. By then he's Vladimir, because of a family tradition of the oldest son assuming the father's name when the father dies; Arthur's father has killed himself (just as his own father had before him), and Arthur cut the hanged body down. A relationship with Lucille develops, they run away to Italy, and he finds work at a vineyard while she slowly starts eating again. They become tender lovers, but when the vintner's son accosts Lucille, Vladimir/Arthur reacts so as to suggest he is truly his father's and grandfather's scion. Debeurme employs a thin, freehand line and minimal detail within frameless panels, like Jules Feiffer or Anders Nilsen (Dogs and Water, 2004), but to tell, very affectingly, a naturalistic story of troubled teens that will be continued in Renee, publishing first in French this year.--Olson, Ray Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
Lucille and Vladimir grow up wounded youngsters in a French fishing village, Lucille anorectically rebellious against her standoffish mother and the slights suffered as a plump little girl, and Vladimir an uneasy bully who must coax his hard-drinking fisherman father home from the bars-a violent dad who hangs himself after a fight with a neighbor. Meeting by chance, the teens form a quick and surprising bond and run away together. Their developing romance falters from their wounds, and Part 1 ends after a crisis. Debeurme uses fine-line simplicity to portray his characters, who initially appear rather one-dimensional. But as the story develops, the characters become more complex and the art more gracefully realistic, tracking Lucille and Vladimir's maturation into a larger world. VERDICT This coming-of-age story won several European awards upon its publication in France in 2006, and Top Shelf's translation marks Debeurme's English-language debut. It evokes great sympathy for its characters, young and old. While the art works, a partial color wash as per the cover would have enhanced the interior. A readalike for Craig Thompson's Blankets; owing to nudity and sexual content, for older teens and adults. The sequel, Renee, just appeared in France.-M.C. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
