I love classic movies and film noir. So when I saw this graphic novel I was intrigued and wanted to give it a try. I'm so glad I did. The artwork is fantastic. The 30s gangster noir is a fun genre and works great in graphic novel form. The characters were great and I loved getting sucked into their world for a while. I would be interested in reading more stories set in this world and with this artwork.

This book was very well representing the time in which it is written - a gritty drama set in the 1930's Chicago, and very reminiscent of movies and classic books set in that time period. It is about strong women, the situations they get into and taking revenge. This book represents what comics and graphic novels can do when they go outside of their boundaries of superheroes and tights.

I liked the artwork and the story. Claire and her friends operate a safe house in 1930s Indiana for the Chicago Syndicate. When things go wrong they decide to take revenge. The story starts off a little slow with a lot of background. Once the story begins however it moves rather fast. The ending does not come as a surprise. The artwork fits the story nicely. The story and artwork are violent so be warned. Enjoy

Casa Nostra by Chris Sarracini & Nick Kilislian is a gritty tale set during the early '30s. Claire runs Casa Nostra, a mafia safehouse. At the request of Frank Nitti, they take in one of Capone's hitmen, a Carmine Rizzo, better known as 'The Butcher’. Rizzo has a penchant for torturing and killing women. Claire takes him in, but she has her own plans for Rizzo.

This was an interesting read. Definitely, if you have a love for the time era, be sure to check it out. The artwork was lovely, done in a style reminiscent of the times. This does mean that the women tend to be curvy and well endowed, the epitome of femininity at the time. The colour palette was perfect for the story, matching tone and time. Some of the art reminded me of Dick Tracy. I have collections of those old comics, and love them. Things did feel a little abrupt, like the story could have fit comfoably in two or three books instead.

***Many thanks to Netgalley and Diamond Book Distributors for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

A moody noir tale of gangsters on the run, dames as tough as shoe leather, betrayal, and revenge.

Claire, a young, half Japanese woman whose absentee father was a "natural born criminal" runs Casa Nostra. A safe-house where she and her three helpers (all female) make a living by "helping bad men get away with bad things". While they aren't specifically mafia run, they are most definitely loosely associated.

At the request of Frank Nitti (Al Capone's main man), the ladies reluctantly take in Capone's most trusted hitman - Carmine "The Butcher" Rizzo - a psycho with a passion for torturing and killing married women while their husbands are away. As one might expect Rizzo's stay at the safe-house does not go well... Claire sets a plan in motion to get revenge against The Butcher.

I liked the story. Starts a little slow setting things up then gets really interesting until towards the end when it all gets a bit convoluted and sputters to a somewhat abrupt ending.

The background art is moody. With a strong noir feel. The characters have an exaggerated look. The women are the epitome of gangster era femininity - curvy, sultry, and beautiful. The men are generally either chiseled hunks with barrel chests or fat blobs of overindulgence. In some ways I was reminded of old comic characters like those found in Dick Tracy or, to a lesser extent, Will Eisner's Spirit.

I think anyone with a taste for the "classic" gangster or detective style comic strips of old would enjoy this book. I hesitate to say it's fun because of the subject matter... entertaining would be a better description.

Warning: It is a dark tale, not for overly sensitive readers.

***Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this title.

This was actually pretty good. I've always stayed away from Udon books because I don't care for Mango, but it looks like they are branching out. This takes place in 1930's gangster Chicago. The lead character runs a safe house in Indiana for Frank Nitti. When one of Al Capone's hitmen hurts one of her friends, she heads out for revenge. The art was interesting and I really liked the sepia inspired color palette. It did end a little abruptly though.

Casa Nostra by Chris Sarracini is another example of comic books stretching the boundaries of what mainstream comics expect them to be. Beautiful artwork and good storytelling make this independent graphic novel an interesting read.

It is 1933 and the gangland wars are rampant in Chicago. On the outskirts of town four women run a safe house where the criminals can lay low. But when one of those criminals turns violent and betrays the women, everything changes. Now the girls are out for revenge against the most violent and brutal men in Chicago.

I loved the artwork in this comic and the characters where in depth and the story was interesting and engrossing. A crime noir told from the point of view of the Moll. If I have a knock against this graphic novel at all it would be in the pacing. It moved slow in parts, but the overall tale will keep you flipping the pages!

A pretty good read.

A female-run safehouse for the Chicago mob, a big heist, a gangster who enjoys hurting women that bit too much - and nothing much to elevate any of this beyond somewhat unsavoury cliché. Well, unless you count the vaguely Tartakovsky art style, all cartoonishly exaggerated curves, but I'm not sure that helps.

'Casa Nostra' by Chris Sarracini with art by Nick Kilislian had an interesting premise, but has a weird art style to go with such a dark story.

The story starts with way too much exposition to lead us to our main character. Abandoned by her father when she was a child, she now runs a safe house for criminals in the gangster era. When the inevitable violence happens, they have a friendly "cleaner" who can help them dispose of the bodies.

They take in a violent member of Al Capone's mob and offer to give him a new face, but his uncontrolable anger can't be contained. Now the ladies are out for revenge.

The story skips around a bit and it's confusing. The pretty dolly art doesn't fit the grittiness of the story. These are supposedly tough women, but they have to rely on men way too much. I found that disappointing. At the beginning of the story, we learn that the main character is Asian, but we never learn why that matters. It's a fact that is useless to this story. The story and art are both muddied and not friendly to the reader.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Udon Entertainment, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

Somewhere between 2 and 2,5 star, I guess?

What I expected:
-a story about four badass complex women getting their revenge and trying to make it in the world of mafia

What I got:
-ugh.. disappointment
-men are allowed to come in all shapes and sizes but women are drawn with the same hourglass figure and boobs defying gravity.. this is not how clothes work!
-@ illustrator: boobs are not in fact grapefruits glued to chest
-women are drawn in a very sexualized way even when they’re dead/half-dead
-seriously… one would think that the illustrator is a necrophile but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
-one girl tries to sweet talk out murder out of the Bad Dude
-WHAT
-pseudo-intellectual speeches not relevant to the plot which only slow down the pace... YAWN
-it was supposed to be about a badass group of women but MC’s man takes up more time than the other 3 girls put together
-I started liking it about 70% in but then MC’s love interest saved the day...
-actually you need to remember that MC’s love interest is the real badass here
-I guess I sort of liked the ending??
-also, colours and background art were nice? They gave off a good vibe
-action scenes were… meh

*A copy of this graphic novel was received for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 3/5

This graphic novel is set in 1933 focused around four women running a safe house for criminals, after a violent betrayal they’re after revenge.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this graphic novel, I was first drawn in by the seemingly intriguing storyline, but I ended up staying for the gorgeous illustrations.
The plot was sound but I felt it could have been developed on a little more, however this is a relatively short novel. Similarly, I would of liked to see a bit more character development, although it did start with a bit of backstory which led into the plot well.
Overall this is an all right graphic novel, if you are a fan of noir historical graphic novels then you definitely should check this one out.

Yada-yada women in power. Yada-yada mix of real-life and fictional baddies in the Capone era. Forget what they think is good about this book, and concentrate on the incomprehensible and boring plot, the been-here-before flavour, and the god-awful "is that even a human being?!" artwork. Rubbish.

A beautiful graphic novel. Great story throughout. Definitely recommend it!

An enjoyable twist on violent crime stories from the era of prohibition. The protagonists are young women, strong, morally suspect but loyal toward each other. The art is expressive and very good.

This needs to become a series. Great for fans of The Kitchen by Ollie Masters.

This was AWESOME! I loved the artwork, I loved the story, I loved the characters! I requested this off Netgalley on a whim given that it was a graphic novel and I knew I could read it pretty quickly. But to be honest, I would’ve read a whole series set in this world. Claire is a seriously kick-butt strong AF heroine. But then again, you’d have to be in order to run a safe house for criminals ran by all women during the early 30s. The author did a great job of pulling in real people and situations from history, including the larger than life Al Capone. I’m pretty certain this is one I’ll need to own in the future so I can take even more time looking through the pages and processing this noir crime story.

Beautiful, gritty, with some gore thrown in (come on, we’re talking gangsters from the 30’s here!). Highly recommended to fans of the noir genre and graphic novels.

Thank you Netgalley for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.

I'm not a big fan of noir, or of the 1930's in general, but I confess, I was quite entertained by this. Casa Nostra is the story of 4 women: a half-Japanese half Italian woman whose father is a well-known (though un-named) criminal and her step-daughter, the daughter of a former mob doctor who has taken up the profession herself, and an African American woman with a criminal past and a vast knowledge of weapons. Together the women run a safe house where Chicago mobsters go to lay low when the heat is on, and sometimes get a new face or set of finger prints in the bargain.
They are loved and trusted by the mafia and are doing well for themselves until the day they are asked to house a sadistic serial killer, who just happens to be under the protection of Al Capone himself.
Beautiful stylized art in dark and brooding tones adds a lovely element to the story, and there is plenty of blood and guts for those who enjoy that sort of thing.

I have never read a graphic novel before, and decided to give the genre a shot when I saw this one available to read, because of my love for historical fiction. I thought it was a very fun read! I absolutely love strong female protagonists, especially during a time in history when they were only meant to be pretty decorations for men to look at. I also like how real-life gangsters made cameos in the story. I really hope the author will continue this series!

*I received this book from Udon Entertainment and Netgalley for an honest review*

This is an annoying book from beginning to end. From the super slow snail pace, to the many times flashbacks interrupted the story; to the many times some random scene would suddenly occur and there’d be no explanation or the sudden change in plot line until much later. Biggest problem, though? The art was such that I had trouble telling the characters apart. This ‘matched perfectly’ with the text that liked being vague about who was who and what was going on. Like how the book opens with a prologue, some unnamed ungendered narrator talking about papa the criminal. Long after the fact we learn that the narrator is 26, a woman named Claire, and half-Italian, half-Japanese.

Story: A graphic novel set in 1933, mostly in Indiana, with occasional trips elsewhere, like into Chicago.
As noted, the story opened with someone telling about the first time they heard their father's name. Not that the reader knew the narrators name until much later. Nor did the reader actually learn the father’s name (unless it was in some section I couldn’t read). Narrator, Claire, had something of a tough upbringing, tough childhood I mean. What with the criminal father, and having the police routinely stop by to beat up her mother to try to get her to tell where father was. Not that she ever did talk

After that beginning bit, we get to 'I'm 26 now and still wonder if he is still robbing banks' (not an exact quote - it's hard to get the book to work on my system, so I can't really get back to get exact quote). So the 'meat' of the story starts when the narrator is 26. We still didn't know gender by the time the book moved to 'present time' (1933). Though the book description had me assuming that we were learning about the daughter of this bank robber. Assumption was correct. Narrator is 'Claire' and female.

Claire, with four other women, runs a 'safe house' where criminals hide from the law. They’ve been doing it a while, and set things up with the Chicago Syndicate. So the criminals know not to break the rules (don’t touch the women; turn over firearms; etc.) or the Syndicate would get them (not that all criminals obeyed – I mean, we are talking about criminals here). Things were going well enough with Claire and the safe house until the ‘golden boy’, Capone’s favorite guy Rizzo, started to go insane and kill women. And the Syndicate wanted to stay at the safe house. Naturally Claire wanted no part of it and naturally she couldn’t’ say no. And naturally things didn’t go well. What with Rizzo having a history of going around being a serial killer and killing women.

There's a lot of backstory in this book, by the way. Even after we got to present day, we still had bits of the past being spilled on the reader. Not my favorite thing to have happen.
One of the problems with the book is that the art makes it hard to tell who is who. Like, somewhere along the way one criminal kills another - I could tell the two apart because one was fat. A cleaner came and cleaned. Then . . . some story about a man killing a woman (this would be Rizzo and some random woman, though the reader doesn’t know this at the time, learns after the fact). Just . . there. Is that the cleaner? Claire the narrator? Didn't know immediately because all the women look the same (for the most part, okay, not really, but it isn't easy to tell them apart), and the men aren't that distinctive either. More impressions of men and women than exact representations. So, I couldn’t always tell what was happening because I couldn’t always tell which characters were doing stuff (seriously, I’m not just saying that – the woman in the snuff piece? Looked like Claire – at least to my poor eyes; or at least close enough to possibly be sister or mother). I couldn’t tell what was going on despite this being a graphic novel - and I could literally see them doing stuff. But . . . which vaguely Italian looking guy is this? The one I already meet? Someone else? Which vaguely mixed race woman is this? Claire? One of the other women who work in the safe house? Some completely different woman? As could be seen from my description of the beginning - the text itself doesn't help matters. Since I didn't even know the narrator's name or gender for a good portion of the time until we finally got to 'the present' (of 1933). Sooo hard to tell what's going on.

This happens several times. 'This' being random scenes suddenly interrupting the flow of the story. Giving information about a new character. Quite annoying and quite breaking the flow of the super slow, very very slow story. This thing was on snail time.

Tough story to tell what was going on – more because I literally couldn’t tell the characters apart. There are large pieces of the story I am unclear on because of that factoid, though I know/picked up the major pieces.

An okay story, I suppose. Just . . . difficult to read.

Rating: 2.6

March 5 2018

I started this really enjoying this book but as i got towards the end i did not like it as much. The art style was the one thing that got me through the final 30 or so pages and i wished that the plot had been neatened up around the end. The main female character i loved due to her strength and how she survived in the male dominated crime world.