Guillaume Singelin

Literary Merit: A gripping story about a female soldier living on the streets and having horrible flash-backs when returning home after a war. City looks Asian but is not specified.
Illustrations: Graphic Novel. Dusty-grayed, low-contrast artwork with graphic violence and blood.
Characterization: Heartbreaking traumatized characters with addiction problems and taken advantage of by street criminals. Animal therapy dog.
Audience: Teens and adults, violence and a few F bombs.
Recommended: Yes ****… (mer)

Set in alternate reality with similarities to our own, war veterans wander the streets neglected by the government and the city, homeless and looking for their next fix. One woman, Jun, a former sniper, becomes an odd mash-up of the Punisher, Robin Hood and Florence Nightingale as she stumbles into declaring a war on the drug dealers taking advantage of the situation. In his afterword, the creator cites only movies like First Blood and Hurt Locker for his research on PTSD, which may be why none of this felt particularly realistic to me. There were some interesting elements, especially in the flashbacks to war, but I never connected with Jun in the present day or bought into her evolution as a character.… (mer)