the one hundred nights of hero a graphic novel

The unapologetic, unshakable love between Cherry and Hero. They revolve around women, often sisters, and as those characters tell their own narratives, the nesting story structure grows.Īlthough there’s a timeless, folk lore feel to the story, there’s also some moments of great, clever humor thrown in, including the narrator cutting in for commentary, and Hero and Cherry using vocabulary I was not expecting! Mostly the humor is dry, feminist wit.Īnd, of course, there’s the romance. These stories are engaging in themselves, and resemble folk tales. In order to save Cherry from being forced into this arrangement, Hero (her lover and maid) tells Manfred stories over the course of these nights, with the promise that once he seduces Cherry, the stories will end. The framing device here is that Cherry’s husband has made a bet with another man, Manfred, that he can’t seduce Cherry in 100 nights. I haven’t read the previous book, The Encyclopedia of Early Earth, but this book stands on its own–while dropping enough hints that I want to pick up the earlier book to get an even richer understanding of this story. A book that starts with a creation story of “In the beginning there was the world / And it was weird” is going to immediately jump in my estimation. From the page layouts to the narration, the design and writing of this book perfectly fits its story, even when it deviates from the norm. I’m a sucker for experiments in story telling, and I love how this book is structured.

And best of all, the two women reaching for each other: no attempt to disguise the queer content. It looks even more gorgeous in person, with the text in shining gold letters.

Once I had it in my hands, I was stunned by the cover alone. I was already hooked from the premise: a graphic novel retelling of the Arabian Nights featuring a woman who has fallen in love with her maid. I don’t think I’ve ever been so giddy from the first pages of a book. I have to read it a couple pages at a time or I get overwhelmed. The art! The narration! The surreal worldbuilding! The f/f couple in the middle of it!!! The feminism! The cleverness! Like, I actually can’t handle it. I can’t get through a page without cackling or exclaiming. I literally cannot handle how much I like this book. I have to start this with my Goodreads status update from 5 pages in:

The one hundred nights of hero a graphic novel