I Kill Giants

I Kill Giants is one of those graphic novels that will speak to each person who reads it at least once in their lives. No one wants to take a direct look at pain and grief, especially when that pain is in the form of how a child sees the world. But, I Kill Giants tackles grief to show how imaginative children can be without ever dumbing down the content.
It is intense, and once you understand what is going sad and brilliant.

“All things that live, die. This is why you must find joy in the living, while the time is yours, and not fear the end. To deny this is to deny life. To fear this... is to fear life. But to embrace this... Can you embrace this?”

It starts with the protagonist fifth-grader Barbara and her disconnected view of the world. She is everything you would think of an eccentric, intelligent kid of her age should be. She wears bunny ears, doesn't connect with other kids, and goes out and slays giants.

Giants aren't real, right? According to Barbara, they are. Due to her obsession with giants, kids at school are cruel. Which, as someone who survived 8th grade, can attest to is real. Due to her overactive imagination, Mrs. Molle, the school counselor, takes an interest in her and wants to help her. Armed with her bunny ears, Barbara sets traps to catch the giants. And, she bravely believes that she can face the giants and be the hero.

“You are stronger than you think.”

The pain of this story is Barbara's reality. Instead of dealing with the pain of her Dad's departure and her mother's illness, she slays giants. Things she can control. All of this is not immediately obvious. It is a graphic novel; Barbara could be a girl who truly goes out and slays giants. But, this story is deeper and more profound. It is a story about grief and loss and how people channel that. Compartmentation seems like such an adult concept, except that it isn't.

I know that the concepts in this story are not everyone's forte. Dealing with depictions of grief is difficult for some readers, but what I liked most about this story is, sadly, every person in this world will have to deal with grief. Along with joy, grief is one of the most human of emotions. It helps define our lives. And, even though I wanted to take Barbara in my arms during most of the book and tell her that everything will be ok, I couldn't. It wasn't going to be ok; Barbara's mother is going to die. This story is one to get the tears rolling.

Graphically, I Kill Giants has a very crisp exaggerated Manga style. Many of the panels were explosive—Especially those dealing with the giants. The pain in her life is immense, and the giants are too.

I love Barbara, I have been Barbara, and I will someday, sadly, be Barbara again. If you want a well-written story, exciting visuals, and a character that you will empathize with and cheer for, you should read this.

Whew. I put reading this book off because I knew it was going to wreck me. Reading it a second time, and in one go, was way more gut wrenching. That whole last chapter had me in straight-up tears.

I knew the damn ending and I still cried.

This book sets you up to have fun with some quirks but with a heavy, heavy cloud over head. How we get to the end is the most important part, and watching Barbara lose control, chapter after chapter, is the roughest part of the story. You know something bad looms, and yet she somehow tries to persevere with witticisms and, in most cases, lashing out under the guise of “giant killing.”

I cannot express enough how fantastic of a read this was. Going head-first into this book, not second guessing anything, it is a testament to the fantastic creative delivery made by Joe Kelly and J. M. Ken Niimura's work.