Author: Melissa Chan and illustrated by Badiucao
Year published: 2025
Category: Adult fiction (graphic novel)
Pages: 264 pages
Rating: 4 out of 5
Location: (my 2025 Google Reading map): Hong Kong, China, Taiwan
Summary: It's 2035. The US and China are at war. America is a proto-fascist state. Taiwan is divided into two. As conflict escalates between nuclear powers, three idealistic youths who first met in Hong Kong develop diverging beliefs about how best to navigate this techno-authoritarian landscape. Andy, Maggie, and Olivia travel different paths toward transformative change, each confronting to what extent they will fight for freedom, and who they will become in doing so.
A powerful and important book about global totalitarian futures, and the costs of resistance.
Review: I am really excited about a new project I've taken on: a book club for history professors, staff, graduate students, undergraduate majors, and History Associate members. I am working with a couple young professors on it and we're trying to decide which book to read first. This graphic novel is one of two that we're considering so the three of us are reading it this month so we can decide.
I haven't read the other graphic novel yet, but this one has a lot going on that we could talk about. It is set in Hong Kong and Taiwan mostly and spans a decade of violence, authoritarian regimes, protests, mass arrests, surveillance, and more. And, yes, they talk about Donald Trump though the "current" president of the US is a woman (oh, sadly, that's so not going to happen).
The illustrations are jarring, dark, and disturbing, befitting the subject matter. The illustrations definitely add to the tension, the sense of dread and violence in the society. They are all in black and white with red accents denoting violence, pain, and injury with only a few pages containing yellow to signify a revolutionary group, the Yellow Birds.
This is not a book for the feint of heart as death and hatred are ever-present. However, it does a good job of showing what it's like to live in a surveillance State, how the people need, no must, rise up, and how they can work together to accomplish their goals. It also shows how easy it is to have double agents.
I am not completely sold that this should be our book choice, but I'll see after reading our other graphic novel option: Lies My Teacher Told Me by Loewen.
Challenges for which this counts:
- 20 Books of Summer
- Alphabet (Title)--Y
- Cover Love--a weapon (Molotov cocktails)
- Diversity--all characters are Asian
- Literary Escapes--Taiwan, China, Hong Kong
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