Blue is the Warmest Colour

Blue is the Warmest Colour is a sapphic tale featuring tragedy, young love and sexual discovery in the 1990s in France. This book has been on my wishlist for some time. The reason for this was because I saw the film of the same title on Netflix and was impressed with the cinematography. I loved the film when I watched it, it blew me away. I loved the little details and the way it ended. There was some clever storytelling.

I saw the book in TokyoToys in Birmingham for £17, and decided not to pick it up as I couldn’t afford it at the time. On my next visit to the store, the book was still there and it has been reduced to £10. It was payweek so I knew I would have been able to afford it with no problem due to my careful budget. I was able to read the book in one sitting on the train back home.

The plot is similar to the film, but they follow their own paths. In the film they just break up, but in the graphic novel, one of the girls dies. As a result, the graphic novel is more heartbreaking. It’s one of the best comics I have read. I read a lot of books, and even though I can forget everything that happened in a book, including characters names… I never forget how a book made me feel. This is one of the many cases that has happened to me in this book.

In a way, I feel like the book and the film are two different stories because the names are different. Emma‘s name is unchanged but Clementine‘s name is changed to Adele in the film.

The draft of this review has been gathering digital dust. Every now and then, I add a few words here or there or a sentence, but my mind goes blank. I forget the character’s names, but not their actions or how they come across. In the light of the Killing Eve finale, it inspired me to finish my review for this book.

I don’t know if any other bookworms have this, but sometimes I can’t remember what happened in a book or a few pages I read last week, but can remember almost everything in books that I read 10 or 20 years ago.

It’s raw in it’s passionate scenes and also represents mental health issues. I found the scenes with the parents very poignant. The use of colour is a great touch. After her loved one dies, she no longer has blue hair. The reason I bring up Killing Eve is because there is a huge demand for sapphic tales with a happy ending. In mainstream media, the only shows I can think off that give proper happy endings to sapphic couples is Steven Universe and Legend of Korra.

Be prepared to have your heart broken when you read this comic. It dosen’t drag like a lot of romance novels do, and the art style brings out the rawness in the emotion between the characters, and how everything is dark apart from the blue hair. Blue is usually defining sorrow and sadness, but in this world there is also a glimmer of hope, even though it isn’t fully obvious. I did find the book predictable at times, but other than that, I did enjoy the book. If you liked the film, you would most likely enjoy this too, even though you may feel underwhelmed.

What I found the most heartbreaking was just as they had made up and we’re about to make love on the beach, one of them aspirates and succumbs to illness in hospital. The scene where the mother begs the doctor to do something when there is nothing the doctor can do almost brought me to tears at the train station.