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. ( )

Tel Aviv cab driver Koby Franco receives a call from an Israeli soldier. She’s not looking for a ride. She wants him to take a blood test to determine if an unidentified victim of a suicide bombing is his father. Since he is estranged from his father, who he hasn’t spoken with in two years, Koby is at first repelled, but becomes intrigued when the tall young soldier reveals that she was his father’s girlfriend.

This subtly crafted graphic novel explores themes of deception and abandonment as it reveals the identity of the bomb victim. It’s a mystery for those who enjoyed Graham Greene's The third man or Dashiell Hammett's The thin man. ( )