Reviews with content warning for Medical content - Blau ist eine warme Farbe: Das preisgekrönte Werk um ein Coming-Out

I'm on the binge with queer graphic novels this month and by far this was my favorite. I was gripped from the start and even with knowing that this would be a sad, emotional story, I still did not expect to tear up at some of the panels.

The art style is not something I usually read becausr I prefer manga/manhwa-esque style but I think the art in here has greatly contributed to the atmosphere a d vibes it was trying to execute---melancholic. As for the story, I could totally see this as a film. It was atmospheric, gripping, and just so sad. I felt a little bit icky with the adult/minor relationship though but I guess it's more on personal preference and maybe this should be a topic that should be broached more on. I also really liked Valentine, one of the side characters, and Clementine's friend. The only thing I did not like very much was the pacing of the ending. It felt rushed and could use more time in fleshing out the transition of the narrtive to the present day.

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starshine1's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad fast-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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adamantane's review against another edition

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THIS IS SO SAD. It is heartbreaking, and tragic, and how can blue be the warmest color when the ending left me so, so cold? It was bittersweet like cyanide, wow.

Tegan and Sara would be <I>perfect</I> musical accompaniment for this.

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taleofabibliophile's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

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

4.5

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ashurah's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad fast-paced

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

4.0

This book destroyed me ~~in a good way~~. I initially thought I wouldn't like the characters, but as I continued reading Clementine grew on me as a protagonist. No one in this book is a good person, but you can somewhat sympathize with the choices they make and understand why they believe what they believe. I loved seeing Clementine's character arc of coming to accept her sexuality, and the overall melancholy tone of the book really added to my reading experience. One thing that I liked in particular was the usage of color, with

scenes in the past being colored in black and white with the exception of Emma's blue hair, while scenes in the present are in color. The choice to use these really muted colors and a mixture of mediums to illustrate the book was breathtaking.

I found the art style a bit too cartoony and rough-around-the-edges, but that's a personal preference that other people may not necessarily agree with. I also thought that the last part of the book

(starting from when Clementine is kicked out and disowned by her parents)

was rushed, and thus I didn't experience as much of an emotional impact as I could have potentially (though I was and still am really emotional about the book).

The drug aspect of the plot wasn't expanded upon as much as I would have liked and the time skip in general was too rushed; I didn't realize that almost ten years had passed until I reread it a second time.

Nevertheless, Maroh does an excellent job of portraying these two women and their relationship. I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did, but it's a very worthwhile read if you're looking for a tragic LGBT character-driven story.

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mirireads's review

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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gewaechshausgeist's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad fast-paced

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

3.75

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meepelous's review against another edition

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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.

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