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A review by nikshelby
Monstress #1 by Marjorie Liu
4.0
Usually: when I choose to read a new story, I know a bit about it. I already know the premise, or I am familiar with the author, or a friend has enjoyed it. My personal queue of reading-desirables is so lengthy, I don't choose randomly.
This book is an exception. I knew nothing about it. Solely: the cover. Sana Takeda's art beckoned me in. Good thing I didn't listen to the old adage: "Don't judge a book by its cover".
Marjorie Liu's story is disturbing, and melancholy. And fascinating. Takeda's art is haunting and beautiful. The second I finished Monstress#1...I went in search of Monstress#2.
Marjorie Liu: "Monstress was more a desire than an idea...I had this image in my head of a battered girl standing alone, absolutely furious, and behind her a battlefield that stretched for miles...I don't know anything about war, not having lived through one. But my grandparents experienced the devastation of war firsthand in China. In their stories surviving was more horrifying than dying. Surviving required a desire to live more powerful than any bomb or army, a summoning of superhuman resilience to keep going, day after day. Starvation, biological experimentation, rape camps, occupation, colonization - what ravaged Europe during WWII, also ravaged China and the rest of Asia. And the victims of this horror had to learn how to first survive...and then survive the surviving.
...My imagination is strong. And the root of my desire, I finally realized, was to tell a story about what it means to be a survivor. A survivor, not just of a cataclysmic war, but of racial conflict and its antecedent: hatred. And to confront the question: how does one whom history has made a monster, escape her monstrosity? How does one overcome the monstrousness of others without succumbing to a rising monstrousness within?
...The image of that furious girl never left me. She followed me...and here we are - and here you are. And here she is too. Sana and I thank you, deeply, for partaking in this epic journey of this young woman who believes she's alone, with a war far behind her - and another one, rising, like a doom, like a monster, on the horizon..."
This book is an exception. I knew nothing about it. Solely: the cover. Sana Takeda's art beckoned me in. Good thing I didn't listen to the old adage: "Don't judge a book by its cover".
Marjorie Liu's story is disturbing, and melancholy. And fascinating. Takeda's art is haunting and beautiful. The second I finished Monstress#1...I went in search of Monstress#2.
Marjorie Liu: "Monstress was more a desire than an idea...I had this image in my head of a battered girl standing alone, absolutely furious, and behind her a battlefield that stretched for miles...I don't know anything about war, not having lived through one. But my grandparents experienced the devastation of war firsthand in China. In their stories surviving was more horrifying than dying. Surviving required a desire to live more powerful than any bomb or army, a summoning of superhuman resilience to keep going, day after day. Starvation, biological experimentation, rape camps, occupation, colonization - what ravaged Europe during WWII, also ravaged China and the rest of Asia. And the victims of this horror had to learn how to first survive...and then survive the surviving.
...My imagination is strong. And the root of my desire, I finally realized, was to tell a story about what it means to be a survivor. A survivor, not just of a cataclysmic war, but of racial conflict and its antecedent: hatred. And to confront the question: how does one whom history has made a monster, escape her monstrosity? How does one overcome the monstrousness of others without succumbing to a rising monstrousness within?
...The image of that furious girl never left me. She followed me...and here we are - and here you are. And here she is too. Sana and I thank you, deeply, for partaking in this epic journey of this young woman who believes she's alone, with a war far behind her - and another one, rising, like a doom, like a monster, on the horizon..."