Isabel Greenberg. Vintage Publishing, (224p) ISBN: 9780224101950. Graphic Novel, read 09/09/25, eBook ★★★★☆

The One Hundred Nights of Hero

Another graphic novel, though this one is an older one (2016) and will be out as a film this year.

A beautifully illustrated modern take on the idea of Scheherazade and the One Thousand and One Nights, telling stories to keep a death, or in this case a ‘suitor’, at bay.

Cutting, dark, and humorous, Hero’s story as well as the overarching theme of the book looks at women’s place in a world of men, where men keep power, limit women, use names and words to control education and freedom.

Each story builds upon  the idea of words as being control and freeing at the same time, I love the idea of the League of Secret Story Tellers, and that fabric art that was looked down upon within the Western canon is one of the ways of story telling.

This is a fantasy world but it is not a fictional world, this is a mirror to what happens in our own lives and communities.

It was a shame that at the end, though they were not in the wrong, is was still the women who had to be transformed for their safety.

For once couldn’t the men have been transformed into… I don’t know, drops of snot or something for the women to be safe.

I received this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.