Lost interest in the storyline after 50 pages. Teenage growing up and true-love drama, set in middle-class Ivory Coast. Artwork is nice. Maybe I’ll try it again another time, but just not in the mood for it now.

I really liked the setting for this one-Ivory Coast in the 70s. I enjoy reading about other countries and cultures, and this was a neat format for it.

The art was good, but the story was a little too much of a soap opera for me, with not very many characters I liked. I'm undecided if I'll read the next volume. ( )

Aya is an irresistible comedy, a couple of love stories and a tale for becoming African. It's essential reading." -Joann Sfar, cartoonist of The Rabbi's Cat

Ivory Coast, 1978. It's a golden time, and the nation, too-an oasis of affluence and stability in West Africa-seems fueled by something wondrous. Aya is loosely based upon Marguerite Abouet's youth in Yop City. It is the story of the studious and clear-sighted nineteen-year-old Aya, her easygoing friends Adjoua and Bintou, and their meddling relatives and neighbors. It's a wryly funny, breezy account of the simple pleasures and private troubles of everyday life in Yop City.

Clément Oubrerie's warm colors and energetic, playful line connect expressively with Marguerite Abouet's vibrant writing. This reworked edition offers readers the chance to immerse themselves in Abouet's Yop City, bringing together the first three volumes of the series in Book One. Drawn & Quarterly will release volumes four through six of the original French series (as yet unpublished in English) in Book Two. Aya is the winner of the Best First Album award at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, the Children's Africana Book Award, and the Glyph Award; was nominated for the Quill Award, the YALSA's Great Graphic Novels list, and the Eisner Award; and was included on "best of" lists from The Washington Post, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal.

More Aya and her friends and fam in mostly romantic scrapes! Her dad's mistress brings their two children to Aya's home; The Miss Yop Contest concludes; Bintou's dad is offered a second wife; brother Albert's mystery love is revealed. Great fun but print is too small for these old eyes. ( )

Yop City is in Ivory Coast in Africa and takes place in the heyday following France leaving as the colonizing government. Loosely based on Abouet’s childhood experience, this is a comedic story of love and miscommunication, which could as easily have taken place anywhere really. The trials of love and the upwardly mobile are nearly universal. Oubrerie’s artwork highlights the comedic tone of the story and creates such distinct characters. Aya wants to become a doctor and her father wants her to marry his boss’s son. Her friends have their own romantic problems and make some wildly terrible decisions, but it all seems to work out alright, thanks to a large family support structure and good humor. Readers interested in African culture, (and specifically Ivorian) will enjoy this book. It would also appeal to readers of romantic comedy. ( )