Craig Thompson is one of the more celebrated graphic novelists around. Each of his books is lavishly praised and awarded. But, for some reason, I just never like them as much as everyone else seems to. I thought Good-bye Chunky Rice was forgettable and Blankets was merely decent. So it was some trepidation that I picked up Thompson’s latest award winning novel Habibi. And, while I enjoyed it, I was still not thinking that it was as great as everyone makes it out to be. So, let’s go over Habibi and see why.

The story focuses on a boy and a girl as they grow up in a boat in the desert (yes a boat in the desert) in a Middle Eastern country. Our narrative starts with Dodala being sold as a child bride. Her new husband teaches her to read and write and through a series of adventures in and around the slave trade, the 12 year old Dodala ends up with a 3 year old slave boy named Zam. She is a mother/sister to Zam, raising him and getting food and supplies by whoring herself out to the nomadic wandering tribes. Zam, as he grows older, eventually figures out what she is doing and, in a mixture of love and teen-age lust, he tries to work to get the food and supplies so she doesn’t have to.

Eventually, Dodala’s reputation grows enough that she is kidnapped and placed in the Sultan’s harem. Zam is forced to deal with life without her and ends up in a religious order of eunuchs. Where upon he ends up kidnapped and brought to the same sultan, but in an area away from the harem. The rest of the story is the related adventures as Dodala and Zam try to escape back to the life they once had. And Zam’s increasing realization that becoming a eunuch might not have been the greatest idea ever as he realizes that he loves Dodala as more than a mother/sister.

Overall the art and design is wonderful. The intricate melding of story and art and Arabic designs are just amazing at times.

But the story is merely decent. It slowed down a lot in the middle and there are a few places where the plot was confusing. The only characters truly developed are Dodala and Zam. There are many other supporting characters that felt just too flat. And since Dodala and Zam are separated for half the book, the book just sort of meanders around during that time. I probably enjoyed Habibi more than Thompson’s other books. But I still have a hard time understanding why other people rate it so high. Recommended.