This is a story of inner thoughts and feelings, with NYC the backdrop. Don't expect much action or suspense. A great read for a book about the city and its people. Recommended.

I couldn’t get this to work. I downloaded it several times on several devices and the file didn’t work. I will pick up a hard copy. It looks awesome and I was sad that I couldn’t read it.

Introspective, immersive and with a unique illustrative, artistic style, I found this to be a thoroughly enjoyable read. While I did not initially know that this was based on Beniot Cohen's autobiographical novel, I found that Chabouté did a good job interpreting the moods and ideas of the narrative. The graphic novel did a fantastic job capturing the deeply complex nature of both New York City and the grueling, thankless occupation of being a taxi driver.

YELLOW CAB is a fascinating look into the culture of NYC taxi drivers, told from an interesting angle. A French filmmaker, desperate for an infusion of ideas and writing inspiration, becomes a taxi driver in order to develop material for his next screenplay. A quick decision made in the heat of the moment becomes a long, drawn out, bureaucratic nightmare as our protagonist attempts to navigate the months-long process of getting started in the business. Once he's driving, thought, he quickly realizes the job is not what he expected. YELLOW CAB provides an intimate and nuanced look into a part of NYC life that makes the city what it is-- the workers who keep driving in order to keep the city running. Its expressive art matches the text perfectly, its jagged lines and expressive faces noting exhaustion, desperation, and hope. Well done!

This is something different that I was not expecting. This manga is a slice of life in New York. I know that we are not to give out spoilers but the title says it all. It is definitely interesting and a bit hard to pout down once you get past the exposition area of it.
I will admit that it was hard to get into the manga at first, there was a lot of exposition, which was needed in order for me to figure out what was going on. The date for the plot of the manga itself is included so that helped a ton. I would not say that this is a laughter sort of slice of life, but more of something that could be explained as eye-opening in a sense.
The artwork is gritty but not in a bad way. From the artwork you feel a type of connection to the characters so it helped me to feel like I was looking at the city and its hustle and bustle throughout their day.
There is not much to be said about it as the graphic novel tells all.
Overall, the graphic novel is okay. I got confused on the narrator parts and had to figure that out. I think it was due in part to where the page splits on my phone, so maybe that is on me. The beginning of the graphic novel felt a little too long for me, but I got through it. And there are some light hearted jokes that I laughed at.

Yellow Cab is an interesting read to say the least. I spent the entire story waiting for the other shoe to drop and it never did. Instead, it’s just a look at the complicated nature of driving a cab in New York and how basically it’s a money pit trap for immigrants looking at getting their start in the country.

What’s even more disappointing is that it’s not even a true story, but instead the author of the novel has written themselves into the story to give a fake sense of realism. At least if the concept was based on fact, it would have perhaps been a story to bring up for this one interesting aspect.

But atlas, I went into my rant too soon. Yellow Cab follows Benoit Cohen, a French filmmaker living in gentrified Brooklyn trying to find his next story and we are obviously reading it. He decides to become a taxi driver to find a story and begins crafting a story that’s duller than the one we’re reading. It shows all the struggles and annoyances of becoming a taxi driver. It’s a big business after all so adding extra steps produces more money for the city and businesses attached to the industry. Benoit goes through it all and about halfway through the story he’s finally driving a taxi. And there’s not much else. Eventually, he stops driving a taxi and the story ends.

On one hand, this is a love note to the complicated nature of New York city. Logistically, New York shouldn’t be able to function and yet it does… constantly and that’s something that a lot of people find fascinating. This is a love note to the city and to taxis which are synonymous with New York. That part is enjoyable. Having only visited New York I too find aspects of it fascinating, but there were so many wasted pages of just artwork of buildings. Buildings that aren’t recognizable or really striking in thick black and white linework. The latter half of the book is just average looking people sitting in the back of a cab and it goes on and on until Benoit is done driving a cab.

The artwork is enjoyable and realistic. It’s all black and white as I said, but it’s meant to be that way. It’s not something that could be easily colored without losing a lot of the detail and contrast in the artwork. At the same time, I never cared for the artwork on the faces. Everything else was fine, but the faces were all pretty damn ugly. As a whole, people are average and borderline ugly, but this comic didn’t have one passable beautiful person. In a city of millions, they are apparently all ugmos. I’m sure a sense of realism was trying to be achieved here, but for my tastes I never liked the faces or the facial expressions. Everyone had the same shocked look and its used over and over throughout the course of the 162-page story. There was almost a sense of timing to when it would hit, but I couldn’t bring myself to count how many times I saw it used.

It’s not a bad story. It’s well-paced and an easy read. It’s the fact that it’s too easy to read. There’s no conflict, just minor inconveniences and because there’s nothing at risk for our character there’s no reason to worry about him. His biggest worry is that he’ll keep driving a cab. Like no shit, I think that’s what most taxi drivers worry about. The story does try to instill this panic and fear of Benoit driving a taxi at night, but then it only seems to happen in his nightmares. Really it seems like Benoit had a fun little break from movies and slummed it as a taxi driver.

It's really difficult to recommend this book. As I said, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop the entire time. I was stuck waiting for something, anything to happen, but it didn’t. You could call it a slice of life story, but it lacks anything deep to make it interesting. Benoit as a character isn’t exactly loveable or interesting and while the artwork is detailed and lovely at times, overall, it’s not memorable nor does it add a deeper layer to the story. Who is this story for? I have no idea, maybe it’s for you though. Maybe something here will ping with you and strike an interest. Maybe this will be someone’s first slice of life comic and they’ll see a world outside of superheroes that can be told with comics and that’s fine. I hope that happens, but for me personally I would be hard pressed to recommend it.

I loved the first half of this book. Seeing all the struggles the narrator had to go to to get the license was quite fascinating. The interactions he had with other cab drivers as they shared about their experiences was eye opening. The second half was less interesting. While I enjoyed reading about the different kinds of people who used his taxi, this section felt a bit repetitive. There were a few passengers and I became emotionally invested. I believe the book would have worked better if the author had expanded on those experiences and cut out more of the less interesting interactions. That being said I enjoyed this book a lot and just loved the artwork.

Thank you to IDW and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Yellow Cab by Benoît Cohen is an artistic, autobiographical graphic novel set in New York City. The story revolves around the creator, Benoit Cohen, a filmmaker who decides to become a taxi cab driver in NYC for a year. According to the description, "behind the fantasy of freedom and independence, behind the faces of his thousands of passengers, Benoît discovers a world in which he is a stranger."

Overall, Yellow Cab is an interesting look at the lives of a taxicab driver, from the perspective of an artist and graphic novel creator. One highlight of this book is what it reveals about the lives of a profession that we see every day, but that we don't often think about. I learned a lot from reading this graphic novel. I did take off 2 stars, because I wasn't a fan of the art style. It might have been better in color. If you're intrigued by the description, or if you're a fan of graphic novel memoirs, you can check out this book when it comes out in May!

While the plot is relatively basic - an immigrant cab driver in NYC - the artwork is the selling point of this graphic novel. Cohen's pencils bring to life all of the populace of the City. The contrast, the line work, the full frames are a delight to linger over. It makes me feel like I've been back to visit myself.

*Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for supplying a copy of this e-book in return for an honest review.*

A dimly lit graphic novel that follows a middle-class filmmaker burnt out and lacking inspiration in a taxi driver job he believes will inspire his work. The pages of the graphic novel are covered with a tone of grim solitude and repetition that will leave some readers looking for more that isn't there. It leaves the reader (like the protagonist) swaying between the grim realities of the situations he finds himself in and the lingering doubts about the ethics of temporarily taking on the role of New York taxi driver as a privileged filmmaker.

Who knew getting a license to drive a taxi in New York could be this difficult and drawn out!

The art in this graphic novel (well, actually not a novel, more of a memoir in graphic form) is top notch, with expressive faces and great storytelling. I found the passenger stories much more interesting than the tedious process he went through to get his license.

For the general reader, the passenger stories rather than the application for license side would be more interesting as it shows a slice of life in the city. I can't help but think that the story from a woman's perspective would have been much more engrossing - something he originally mooted. For someone aspiring to become a taxi driver in the Big Apple, this maybe essential reading with lots of entertainment thrown in.

Content: Language is surprisingly quite clean except for some off-colour jokes and stories in the speech.

Yellow Cab's plot has promise but at the end of the day falls flat. We follow the story of Benoit Cohen, a French film maker, who takes on taxi driving when he feels he needs inspiration. The plot revolves around him getting his license, training, hours, and classes in and then the fares he picks up. There are no other plot points nor does the story have a turn or a definite ending. If you want some interesting vignettes of fictional New Yorkers then sure, this'll do ya.

The star of this graphic novel is the art. Black and white but very bold and rich in its style and feel. It evokes the gritty side of New York City that many cab drivers are used to. It's a quick read, the small stories within are enjoyable, but overall it ends up not delivering the expectations of what a graphic novels feels like.

Yellow Cab follows a French filmmaker who finds himself behind the wheel of a Taxi in NYC. It documents his journey to this job and the people he meets in his cab.

I would say the highlight of this book is the artwork. The black and white thin-lined detailed drawing really added a level of “draft” to the book, that it wasn’t something that was a polished finished copy, and this definitely was working.

However, the story is not terribly impressive. We watch him battle through the registration process only to sit in the front seat, barely get to know any passengers, and just kind of mope the whole time. I was waiting for a moment where he would meet someone in the car and a switch would flip, but this never happened, leaving the expectations, that the book set up, feeling incomplete.

Overall, it was a quick read and if you have time to kill or love great artwork, go for it. But I don’t know that I would actively put money towards picking this one up if you want story over artwork.

**Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC of this book.**

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher IDW Publishing for an advanced copy of this graphic novel memoir.

One of the most iconic images of New York City is the yellow cabs that fill the Streets and Avenues, bobbing and weaving and honking away 24 hours a day. Seen in movies, television shows, art, photos, wherever there is an image of the city a cab is pretty ubiquitous. Before Uber and Lyft visitors and citizens were at the mercy of cab drivers, ignoring their hails, taking their own routes, not knowing the way to Grand Central. And as it turns out, the cab drivers are now at the mercy of their own occupation and city that they drive in. Yellow Cab written and featuring Benoît Cohen and illustrated by Christophe Chabouté, is both a New York story and a story about creativity and what has to be done sometimes to find it.

After years of hustling for financing, writing and directing shorts and films Benoît Cohen, is tired. Needing a break from his grind for both physical, emotional and creative reasons, Cohen decides to get a hack license, a livery license that will allow him to drive taxis. Besides the romance he imagines about driving around the city, he hopes to kickstart his creative drive, and decides to write a screenplay featuring a woman in her 40's needing extra income, and becoming a taxi driver also. After months and months of classes, physicals, drug and background tests, runarounds from bureaucracy, more tests, more runarounds, Cohen finally gets his license, and takes to the streets.

A slice of life story about a New York institution, told by a gentleman, not quite slumming, he pursues the job more out of curiosity and for creative opportunities, rather than pay or need. Not much happens but that is part of the story's appeal. From his front seat Cohen is able to see the City from new view, not full of exciting stories, but mundane, just life as it happens for millions of people. Working for the city he also got to see what a poor occupation he had chosen, and how drivers probably put themselves far into debt trying to get this job that so many told them that was a good money maker. For a job it costs a lot of money to become, stay and work as a taxi driver, and that is before the police make their daily ticket quotas on cab drivers. The art in the comic is really beautiful and pairs with the story well. The city looks both amazing and grimey. You don't usually get the real buildings, the municipal buildings the garages and diners that fill they outskirts of the city, but here they are rendered quite well. The black and white really makes the city come alive.

An interesting story about subjects American graphic novels don't usually cover. I enjoyed this quite a bit. I loved driving around and seeing the city with views and art that really stood out. The story flowed feel and never dragged, even when his days seemed so long driving around. Cohen's movie might have gone nowhere, but this is a very engaging story.

Thank you to the IDW Publishing and NetGalley for the advanced electronic review copy of this book. This is a story of Benoit Cohen, a French filmmaker, who is tired of his movie-making career and wants a change. He decides to apply for a TLC license and drive a taxi cab in NYC, using his experience behind the wheel as inspiration for a script. The black and white color scheme of the art adds to the grittiness of the character’s experience.

Yellow Cab describes a period in the life of Benoit Cohen when he decided to become a cab driver in new York City. It follows Cohen as he goes through the process of becoming a cab driver and some of his experiences when he starts driving a cab. It also describes Cohen's thought process as he brainstorms making a movie based on his experiences only with a female protagonist.

I absolutely love the art in this book. Christophe Chaboute is a brilliant artist and his stark, chiaroscuro style really fits the narrative. His composition is fantastic. I love his cartooning immensely. It's worth reading this book for the art alone.

The story itself is good, but Cohen the character is a bit much. While the other people driving cabs are doing so to make a living, Cohen seems like a tourist having a lark while trolling for ideas. But he does have the grace to recognize this.

I enjoyed this a lot. Mostly for the art, but also for the glimpses of the passengers and the implied stories of the other people working in the industry with Cohen.

Really great! I heard about the book, but never read it, so the graphic adaptation was perfect to try it and now I really want to read the novel. Great concept, great experience by the author as well. Very interesting!