Paul à la pêche (a.k.a: Paul goes fishing) by Michel Rabagliati

We got this book from my boyfriend's amazing cousin. She is an artist and you can see the influence of the author in her work. And yes, that's me devouring the book. Now, this is my first review this year and I will try my new review "style" with it. Let's start:

What's the book about?: Paul, our "hero", is a graphic artist, and as you may imagine he goes fishing. But this trip has a lot more of meaning. The whole family vacation is sprinkled with back stories of the other characters and some heart breaking situations with his girlfriend Lucie.

What was different of this book?: To begin with, is the first "comic" book that I added to my reviews. Is not the first one that I have read off course, but is the first one that has touched me so. You see, the history is partially  auto biographic, so the sad and happy moments in the story get to you even more. Also, is the first comic book the I've ever read in French, and this one was very local, slang French from Québec. It was like the last part of Cloud Atlas where I had a lot of trouble at the beginning because the words were written as they sound. That was the only problem I had and it only lasted for a couple of pages.

The 10% moment: First impressions are important, and I think that for me the first impression of a book comes from the about the first 10% of it. This doesn't necessarily apply to series, since I already know some of the back story and the author's style, but with new books this is the case. Anyway, for this book when I got to that moment I was liking the book wanting to know more about all the characters around Paul.

Final thoughts: I have to tell you, there were a couple of moments that I wanted to cry and I kept telling to myself "this is just a comic". But the author delivers emotion in a very nice package. The drawings remain simple yet powerful, and most importantly for me, was the character build-up. I enjoyed this book very much, it was a nice way to start my 2013 reading year. I can't pinpoint what was missing for me to get a full 5 but maybe I just need to read a bit more in the series. This is definitely a book I would and have recommended.