It took me a while to get into this book but once I sat down to it the story zipped along. It was nice to finally read a book set in my home country. The language and the story had a genuine Israeli flavour unlike so many stories set here written by visitors with a personal agenda who think they know Israel but see only the 'big themes' and miss the real life. (it was a problem I encountered with some reviews of this book)

Although Exit Wounds was a pleasant read it left me a little unsatisfied.
In hindsight the story seemed a little thin and I missed the depth of emotional development that I enjoy in plain prose. This is probably a characteristic of graphic novels in general rather than a failing of this book in particular but as this is my first graphic novel I'm unable to judge.

However my lack of satisfaction was also due in part to the fact that at least one of the main story lines was left unresolved. This is not a totally unknown tactic with Israeli screen writers so I was not completely surprised.
And one of my personal peeves was the constant bad humour of all the protagonists. Hardly a single moment of joy encroached on the storyline and almost every dialog was a curt exchange resulting in hurt feelings.

All in all I'm glad I made the effort to read this book and I would recommend it both to Israelis and those who want to know a little bit more about the real Israel. ( )

Not the most thrilling graphic novel I've read in a while. Basically, this guy never keeps contact with his father - for some fairly good reasons. This girl seeks him out, thinking that he was killed in a bombing, and she is involved with the father. A journey takes them to find out some more not so great things about the dad and the ending kind of stunk. I think I just may not have been in the mood for this type of a story. ( )

Although Modan doesn't have the most refined of drawing styles, I still enjoyed the art in the book. There is so much human drama in the story that it's really calming that the drawings are so uncomplicated. The "mystery" of Koby's father is solved little by little through the book, and although I have a logistics (or maybe just - dare I admit it? - moral) problem with Koby and Numi's relationship, it's still quite heartfelt. I honestly didn't think much of the book while I read it, but the story has really stayed with me and, with the amount of books I read, I have to give it a lot of credit for that - this is a book I will re-read more than once.

http://boklista.livejournal.com/54704... ( )

"Do you think that every time we meet a person we should treat it like it was the last time we were ever going to see them?"This Israeli author tells the story of Koby, a self-involved taxi driver in Tel Aviv who is approached by a female soldier regarding his father - a man she has reason to believe was one of the unidentified victims of a suicide bombing a few weeks back. Their journey of discovery and their ever-changing relationship is handled with impressive subtlety, and Modan's art is at once elegantly simple and extremely detailed. ( )

Rutu Modan’s Exit Wounds has been getting a lot of notice this year, and with good cause. Based in Tel-Aviv, she draws in a clean line style about life in Israel. The somewhat foreign quality of the illustration combines nicely with her subject matter to create a novel that is easy to read yet somewhat exotic (for readers outside Israel, at least).

The story revolves around Koby, a young man who drives a taxi in Tel-Aviv, and Numi, a woman his age who happens to have had a relationship with his father, a deadbeat dad named Gabriel. Numi fears Gabriel has been killed in a suicide bombing and involved Koby in her search for answers.

Although the setting and circumstances are not very well explored in contemporary comics, the plot remains steadfastly conventional. A romance blooms between Numi and Koby, destined to be a tortured romance due to their previous relationships with Gabriel.

Modan is clearly a great artist and working with some compelling material. Exit Wounds is an indication that we should be keeping an eye out for her future work, although I will be hoping for her to escape the confines of conventionality. ( )