Reviews with content warning for Rape - Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands

I don't usually read graphic novels, but I'd read plenty of reviews that suggested Kate Beaton's style and tone would resonate with me, so finding Ducks at the library was a great chance to see for myself. I was also curious about the subject matter (the oil sands, and the lives of the people working there), which was completely new to me.

This is excellent for readers who appreciate subtle dark humour, room to make up their own mind on topics that can be bleak and difficult to talk about (there's a lot of subtext, though the author gets to spelling things out more clearly towards the end of the book), and relatable experiences around the concepts of belonging and home.

I loved the illustrations, which give a good idea of the scale of the plants and their impact on the nature surrounding them, even to someone who hasn't ever set foot in Canada (yet). I also appreciated the portrayal of the workers as complex, flawed humans, within a context that could easily have lent itself to clear-cut, black-and-white judgement. For every episode that made me unquestionably angry with men and about the behaviour of men (of which there are plenty), there was one that made me see the contradictions some of those men carried inside them, or remember there are good people to be found even in a harsh environment such as the one of the camps. As Kate Beaton says in her closing notes, this is about her personal experience in the oil sands and the people she met, and given the nature of some of the things she went through, it's remarkable she could write and illustrate it with so much nuance. Her book gives a very clear sense of how and why this is the kind of experience that stays with people for life.

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morag's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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displacedcactus's review

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

I feel like most people already realize this, but just in case, I want to make something clear: Do NOT pick up Ducks expecting something as silly and witty as Hark! A Vagrant or Beaton's picture books. This is a very serious memoir about the author's time working in Alberta's oil sands, at job sites where the men sometimes outnumbered the women 50 to 1, people worked long hours, and were cut off from family and friends back home.

This is both a personal memoir, and a statement about the overall human toll of the oil sands -- not just the harassment that Beaton experienced, but what the other women on site experienced, the addiction and mental illness among the crews, the priority of profits over true safety, and of course, the environmental impact. The titular "ducks" are hundreds of birds who died in a tailing pond. The Indigenous population of the area has to contend with polluted water and air, among other issues.

Beaton approaches the subject with a certain amount of nuance, but this is still a difficult read. Make sure to check out the CWs before you read this.

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raybudbury's review

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challenging dark emotional funny sad tense fast-paced

4.5

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emireads's review

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challenging emotional reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

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