I really enjoyed this graphic novel.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I downloaded this before it got archived, but was unable to retrieve it to read a copy!
Unfortunately that means I did not get a chance to read it completely or even enough to write a review. It had a good premise though.

Girls, living in the country will be your chance," her parents tell her. And so Catherine Meurisse spends her childhood outdoors. Construction all around her: an old farmhouse renovated into a home, trees planted, a garden created, dreams cultivated. They dig, they graft, they plant a rosebush "adopted" from Montaigne, a fig tree from Rabelais. They observe the tumult of the outside world: new developments in industrial agriculture, the citification of rural France... With her characteristic humor, Catherine Meurisse has composed a witty poem dedicated to the countryside where her vocation as an artist first took form. The Great Outdoors, like Lightness, her previous album, is a testament to her conviction that nature and art —everything that grows, everything that lives against all opposition— always offer us a chance.
A very nice graphic novel.

I would like to thank NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this ebook.

The Great Outdoors by Catherine Meurisse reminds me of my childhood. They were filled with full of wonder and curiosity. The illustrations were gorgeous.

WHAT A MASTERPIECE!

This comic is a celebration of a childhood spent in nature and a childhood shaped by nature, it's whimsical, intelligent and a lot of fun. It awoke such nostalgia in me for those lost days where we had no smartphones and nature was our playfield, our source of imagination. Art is celebrated in a special way - first by the gorgeous art by the author and then by her description of how she came to do art - visiting the louvre and getting lost in the beauty of all of it.

The book is a pure festival of the beauty in this world and I'm always 100 percent for more books, more movies that make me see more beauty in creation. 5 stars!

I thank Netgalley and Europe Comics for an ARC to read and review.

Witty and filled with wonderful renditions of the memorable great spaces in our lives - encapsulates how the authors life growing up in the countryside was made up of particular experiences, memories that made lasting impressions and the grand overtures of nature. Childhood wonder and curiosity, the hurts and considerations that your parents shared with you, your observations. A coming-of-age story that reminded me of places that I grew up in and how I spent whole days out of doors as a child.

It did take me awhile to get through it I admit, but more due to the medium that I experienced it in (digital, on a laptop) - I daresay a physical copy would be a more fitting mode of experiencing it.

Source: Netgalley eArc
First finished: 4may2020

A girl finds enjoyment in making a bedroom museum of the dodgy stones, nails and poos of the neighbourhood when her parents move her into a run-down and ultra-rustic farmhouse. Together the family finds solace in growing things, and admiring their gardening efforts. I can't really say I took to this – it didn't engage much, and that was before the girl's garden gnome started talking and playing devil's advocate about it all. Also, the law states, with about 99% accuracy, that any book that quotes Proust is not for me. Perhaps two and a half stars, because it could have been more twee and ineffective than it is, mind.

I really enjoyed this graphic novel because of its art style and entrenching plot. I would highly recommend this to fans of graphic novels and odd, interesting stories.

Catherine Meurisse's The Great Outdoors is a tranquil and thoughtful story of her childhood in the country side. It's written from a child's point of view full with wonder and even philosophical aspects. Her parents bought an old ruin of a house from the country side in France. The family starts to renovate the house and the garden, since they are gardeners both and the girls see the slow change of everything and the loss of nature due to the supposedly fantastic future. I really enjoyed the slowness and the nature in the story, the witty comments and insightful thoughts that Meurisse's has and uses to move the story. In a sense hardly anything happens, but you don't even notice that, since you see it all - the trees, the summer breeze and the animals.

The pace is perfect and the colors are that of summer, full with green and sunlight. Meurisse's thin line art combined with the sketchy style is airy and the panels are full of warmth. The big pictures are wonderful and breath more air to the story. There's this odd distant feeling to the comic and at the same time it feels like you've lived trough the same - it's an odd contradiction especially since I've never lived in the country side.

Parisians moving to the country to live a rural life seems to be an entire genre of French comics. This is yet another tired volume to that effect. Meurisse retells her childhood while her parents restored a cottage in the French countryside. I found it boring with poor art.

A gorgeously detailed book. Can be enjoyed by children and adults. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC.

Comics artist Meurisse grew up in the French countryside, and wishes she still had a magic door by which she could jump from her Paris apartment back to the family farmhouse. It’s not just a place, but a time that she wishes to recreate. Her parents enthusiastically renovated a dilapidated stone farm building and planned an elaborate garden with cuttings from their childhood homes and the homes of famous writers they’d visited. They had in mind a new Versailles, while Meurisse and her sister took the fossilized shells and medieval nails they found and started their own museum (admission: 50 centimes). This reminded me of my own childhood: I fancied myself an archaeologist and collected rocks, fossils, shells and pottery shards.

What with tourists, local politics and industrialized farming, though, the place wasn’t always the idyll her parents envisioned. Meurisse recalls the paintings that first made her fall in love with art, and shakes her head at how slow she was to come of age sexually. Her drawing style, especially the way she depicts herself and her father, reminded me of Quentin Blake’s. I loved the mixture of warm and cool colors used to illustrate the gardens and buildings. I’m interested to read her previous graphic novel, Lightness, about the aftermath of surviving the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

A lovely read a family moving to the countryside.Beautifully illustrated a pleasure to read.Looking forward to more by this author.#netgalley#europe o I s.

Very nicely illustrated, amusing scraps about history and art. A pleasant read..Ode to a childhood in the French countryside. It captures a real feeling of being outdoors, lots of love for plants. There is a lot of criticism of modern agriculture and developments with rural life,

This book is inspiring with such beautiful illustrations of nature set in the outskirts of France. This is Catherine's story as she navigates through life that is growing and changing along with her. She wonders about everything around and begin to grow fond of painting that she works hard to make it as her career. This book was really fun, interesting, knowledgable and beautiful. Its the perfect read by just chilling at home and devouring this amazing book!

Lovely, lovely art, but the tale of a girl growing up in the countryside left me a little cold, to be honest.

A pleasant and engrossing story, wonderful illustrations. I liked this book and I'd like to read more by this author.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

An interesting graphic novel about a girl spending time in her life outside and her imagination. Nice go through.

A graphic novel that isn't a story more than it is an explanation of the past and how people treated the older generation, farms, etc.

I really enjoyed this book. I felt somehow attached to the plot, it was a pleasant reading, also the illustrations were really nice to the eye. Thanks to #EuropeComics and #NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are mine.