Giantess is the coming-of-age story of Celeste, who we don’t learn much about, other than that she is female and a giant—though her being a giant plays little into the story told. The narrative itself focuses on Celeste’s femininity and her struggles with an overtly patriarchal society, but doesn’t ever really seem to develop or become a cumulative experience that integrates preceding chapters, events, and characters. The artwork is absolutely beautiful and the dialogue itself works well with the illustrations, but there doesn’t seem to be a strong enough narrative thread or character motivations to make Giantess the classic it might have been.

This beautifully-illustrated graphic novels follows the journey of a Giantess named Celeste as she strives to find her place in the world. Her journey is clearly told through a feminist lens, with Celeste struggling with many aspects of patriarchal societies. I enjoyed that this take was nuanced enough to present more toxic versions of so-called feminism as well, exemplifying that two wrongs do not make a right. This story was more emotional than I anticipated from the cover, but this only added to my enjoyment. Celeste's story was full of ups and downs, much like all of our lives are. Our main character was not infallible and strove to learn from her own mistakes while taking accountability. There was a lot of emphasis placed on embracing personal freedom for all and accepting that this freedom can mean very different things for everyone. There was even a bit of (delightfully) unexpected polyamory!

In short, this graphic novel has a lot to offer when read as a commentary on feminist ideals. It's focus is on the journey of life, it's ups and downs, and what we learn along the way.

This is one of the few times I've genuinely loved a French translated comic. No disrespect to other translators, but a lot of them are worded to literally and don't often make sense in English. Very happy to have read this. :)

The art in this book was gorgeous! Unfortunately, the story didn't do it for me. I couldn't get over the fact that the main character seemed to be a giant only as a gimmick. This could have had some really interesting implications for the plot, especially where discussions of feminism are concerned, but it felt like the narrative never quite got there. The chapters sometimes dragged while simultaneously feeling like they glossed over moments for meaningful character development.

Giantess was a wonderful graphic novel that follows Celeste, a giant baby found by an ordinary family. As she grows up she finds herself wanting and searching for more and after being lured away from her family she ends up on many adventures. I really enjoyed discovering Celeste become comfortable in her skin and finally find a place to call her own.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review!

I am a bit tired so here we go, a few words to describe this book and a smallish review: Magical, wonderful, BIG, oppression and freedom, gorgeous, fab main character, family, journey, love.
I had fun reading this wonderful book, I am glad that I got the chance to read this one. I was planning on helping the Kickstarter, but I wanted a physical copy, sadly... the shipping is just mad. I had fun following Celeste on her way through the world. See her figure things out. Learning new things. About womanhood. Love. The cities and lands she (or later on with others) visited, WOW, I want to go as well! But I also seriously wanted to kick some people's butts. People were horrible.

This while filled with lovely are and beautiful messages for coming of age
Still fell very short of being a book or graphic novel I would recommend.
I loved smcertsin chapters of our sweet giantess’ life more than others but I feel like the whole story was a bit disjointed and caused it to feel stilted. Maybe too much was trying to be said and that’s why I’m feeling this way.
Beautiful chapters and art, I can not stress that enough.


A big thank you to the publishers and netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

This graphic fairy tale follows the eventful life of the titular giantess Celeste, from farmgirl childhood to idyllic egalitarian commune in the mountains. Each chapter is a semi-self contained episode from her life.

This is most definitely a graphic novel for adults or older teens, as it deals with themes such as misogyny, sexual exploitation, religious trauma, and slavery. It's not a fluffy book, though the heroine does overcome her various traumas to find her own happiness.

I found the story a bit too relentlessly bleak for my taste - at some point you will find yourself asking of anything will ever go right for this woman, as even things that seem happy quickly take a turn. Unfortunately, I also really did not enjoy the art style, which made the book much less enjoyable for me personally.

This book will certainly find an audience, and my rating reflects the fact that I know my feelings about the story and the art are subjective.

With thanks to Diamond Book Distributors and NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a much larger endeavor than it comes off to be and not because our man character is in fact a Giantess. 200 pages may seem like much, but in that time we follow most of Celeste's life. From being a child found in the forest, to watching her siblings grow, mature, and venture out into the world. Teenage-young adult rebellion, followed by punishment for those actions. First hints of love and acceptance. Then to a very long journey to discover who she is, several times over. Each time having it's depths of darkness and shining lights of growth.

Celeste's life is big and pretty messy. I think some of her ideals such as marriage and how she ends up handling some of her own relationships leaves me with some moral questions. But, it's not my life. I'm just being shared a glimpse into her world.

I loved the sections of each season of her life, until most of them ended up dark and empty of happiness and joy. It left like she could only enjoy something so long until it become a prison, typically of her own creation or indulging.

I read this in one sitting and it was a lot. Took me over 2 hours and several moments to stop and process what had happened. This isn't a story for everyone, but it's a surprisingly emotional journey.
Art work is amazing, font is less than desirable to read, story over all has it's ups and downs but I feel pretty neutral. Wish I'd like it more.

Spectacular, wonderful, complex, lovely. I accessed this on NetGalley so I need to be more coherent, but this was a fun, surprising read and I got a lot more out of it than I'd anticipated!

To start, the illustrations are really joyful. The artistic style is distinct and playful, but it never takes away from the seriousness of the material. There are several panels (particularly chapter openers) that are breathtakingly lovely and that I would readily frame and hang up at home! Celeste is really goin thru it in many points of the story - at first you sympathize with this young sweet character, but eventually fully empathize with her as she grows and her troubles start to really mirror and succinctly address some of the perils of being a woman. One thing I do think this book could use is more people of color, since there aren't any (or if there are they appeared extremely briefly and enough not to notice), and since it would have been interesting to see the story tackle intersectionality. Ultimately I'm happy to have a story that wasn't trying too hard on that front, but it just would have been nice.

This does read a little bit like a choppy serial, but I read it in multiple sittings across a couple of days, so it ended up being okay. A few of the chapters did feel quite abrupt, but this was a lovely little treat I looked forward to picking back up every time I returned to it. I certainly did not expect this to be as boldly feminist as it was but I am generally really pleased I gave it a try and might buy my own copy once it comes out this fall.

"And Celeste, do you keep growing?"
"I try... In one way or another."

I think this quote is the perfect pull to describe this graphic novel. The story is so soft in all the best ways.
The pages that had the sky were especially breathtaking

Celeste is such a good heroine
Loved it a lot

A beautifully drawn and plotted graphic novel that managed to inter splice strong thematic elements and keep up great entertainment value.

Whew, I'm honestly glad this book is over. It took me weeks to finish because I had to force myself to read even a few pages a day.

I'll start with the positive: I liked the art style. That's about it.

Now on to the not so good things:
Celeste being a giant was almost pointless. The hardships she faces are rarely put upon her because she is a giant. It's because she's a woman.

Throughout the book Celeste goes on many adventures, but she somehow never developes any personality. Her life is controlled by others for most of the book and I felt like it took too long until she got some empowerment.
Something that I found extremely odd were her physical relationships. Sorry, but that's too unrealistic anatomically-wise, even for a fantasy novel.

The chapters felt disconnected from each other, their order probably could have been changed without it having any big influence on the plot. I would have preferred a continuous plot instead of a bunch of short episodes.

I also wonder who the target audience of this book is supposed to be. There are definitely themes that are more fitting for a more mature audience, but it didn't feel like a book for adults either.

Overall, I didn't like this book and I personally wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Hello from Outlierland once again! 😓 This simply didn’t match up to that exquisite cover.

A farmer finds a giant baby girl in a forest. As he and his wife have six sons and no daughters, they adopt her and name her Celeste. Celeste lives a sheltered life with her brothers for many years. But after they venture onto their separate career paths, Celeste’s true life journey begins. As she traverses new places and meets new people, she comes to an understanding of what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal world and she learns through mistakes and mishaps how she can finally make a place for herself and be what she wants to be.

This doesn’t flow like a typical giant story. While Celeste is the only giantess in the entire book, her size plays only a minor role in the plot. Her femininity and her self-acceptance gets the major focus. In a way, this is good as Celeste is treated almost as a normal character. But this also leads to several exaggerations, some of which border on the bizarre. Moreover, Celeste spends most of her life being a character whose direction is decided by others. Sometimes, this came across as genuine; at other times, it was too silly and I couldn’t understand why a powerful giantess didn’t use her size and strength (both of which she was aware of) to escape from her troubles.

The plot takes Celeste from naïve beginnings, through adventures with people of all classes ranging from princes and knights to peddlers and travelling troupes, to even a ‘witch’ who isn’t a witch and manipulative sirens on an island. Each chapter contains one encounter that impacts Celeste’s life path. Thus the plot feels like an episodic journey from one situation & place to the next. It is here where the book disappointed me the most. The chapters are almost isolated compartments with there being only a minuscule impact of the events of one on the proceedings of the next. This makes the narrative structure feel jumpy and disconnected. After the midway mark, I was just bored with the illogical flow. The ending is decent but not exceptional.

The plot development also left a lot to be desired. I would have loved to know more about Celeste’s origins. Where were her parents? How did she land in the forest as a baby? Did she ever look for them? The narrative leaves this thread untouched. The character development of some secondary characters is pretty random. They come and go and act as per the whims of the author, with no pattern to their behaviour. Because the story is set in the medieval era, the inconsistencies become even more visible as there’s way some of the men would have acted that way in that era.

The illustrations also did nothing for me, which is really sad because great sketches can help save a graphic novel to some extent. The nature and village scenes are drawn well. But the human figures are too cartoonish and disproportional at times. Many of the male characters look the same, with only the speech bubbles helping in identifying them. Celeste’s size keeps changing as per the size of the panel, and she simply doesn’t seem to age after a certain point.

If you read this mainly as a combinations of the three Fs – fantasy, fable, feminism, you might like it more than I did. I felt it went all over the place and would have worked better with a more organised storytelling approach. Mine is an outlier review so please look through other opinions before you make up your mind about this graphic novel.

2 stars.

My thanks to Diamond Book Distributors, Magnetic Press, and NetGalley for the DRC of “Giantess”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Note: There is some cartoonish nudity but nothing sexualised.

This graphic novel is about a giantess (as you can guess by the title) named Celeste (in the French version) she is an orphan who was found in the heart of the mountains, and welcomed into a family of six brothers. When everyone started leaving the family cocoon, Céleste also wanted to explore new horizons and learn more about her origins and so began her journey .

I picked this book purely by curiosity because I found the cover magnificent and the title intrigued me. What I found interesting with this novel was the fact that at first it may seem like a story for children , but as you go further into it, they tackle more mature matters like abortion, we follow Celeste as she discovers the hostility created by difference, the injustices of war, religion, genders but also love. I really liked the fact that each chapter of the novel was linked to a specific theme and through the novel, we discovered several landscape, scenery and characters, which led the MC to grow.

In a nutshell, it is a well written and illustrated graphic novel, we are able to fully dive into the story and you could see the effort that was put into making it.
Thanks for reading my review.
PS: I read the book in French

This epic tale encompasses the "Giantess" of the title's whole life: her loving family, rebellious years of exploration, friends and love. I absolutely loved Celeste, and her very relatable desire to belong somewhere in the world. I would recommend to anyone who loves epic adventures, beautiful art, and an complex characters.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A a baby giantess found by a normal human family, they decided to adopt her as their "daughter" with their bunch of sons in their small village between the mountains, then when she got older like her brothers, she wants to seek adventure and to discover the world beyond the moutains. Celeste, our naive giantess, will live adventure after adventure and will meet each time new interesting or unusual individuals, she will make friends, enemies, she will also fell in love, really at the end, this giantess will have an intereting life to tell.

I liked the art but the story got boring and really odd at a lot of points. By the end, I just wanted it to be over. I didn't really liked this story in general. She is the last one of her kind and at the beginning, we don't know how she got there, it is a bit odd. Also, her relationship with men, precisely the physical one was the most bizarre thing of the story. Nope, I didn't really liked it.

This was a beautifully written story with incredible art. I really loved this art style! I thought the story was very sweet and paced very well. I'll be recommending this to my friends! It was a little more mature than I was expecting for something labeled Teen/YA but I think the story is exactly what is necessary for that age group. I think people will learn a lot from this incredibly moving story.

حبيت ستايل الرسم والألوان جداً جداً ! القصة نفسها كانت ممتعة أيضا.
بس كنت أتمنى الحقيقة إنها بتقابل أهلها الحقيقيين، أو ناس مثلها ؟ أحس القصة كانت بتكون ممتعة أكثر لو كان فيها أكثر من عملاق واحد !

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I picked this up because I loved the soft, whimsical design of the cover, and the interior did not disappoint. The art is well-drawn and tastefully colored, the latter of which really enhanced parts of the story—the deepest blues for a night sky full of stars and the most miserable grey for convent tucked away in the mountains... There was such a wonderful connection between the visuals and the atmosphere while reading the book..

The story is where things get a bit less lovely.

In truth, while I enjoyed the narrative, I found it to be a little all over the place. In only 200 pages, there are endless villages and towns and marshes and islands—Celeste is always on the move, never staying too long, and it's almost never HER decision to move on, either. Despite the feminist under- (sometimes extreme over-) tones, Celeste is a very passive character. In the beginning, she wanted to leave not because of her own curiosity, but because her brothers but she was forbidden to. Then she goes from town to town, individual/group to individual/group, accepting whatever befalls her; she willingly goes to jail and does not advocate for herself, she accepts almost all of the romantic affections given to her, and she moves on from one place to another when others signal it's time (e.g., too much damage, too big a mouth to feed, too many unladylike mistakes, etc.). Most of the story, she allows others to dictate her life in some way and that really frustrated me.

And after finishing the book, I found myself very dissatisfied with the ending. She and her friends end up creating a town of their own, but A) it wasn't her idea, B) it wasn't her land, and C) there's no real resolution with her husband. It felt like the stepping stone to a true denouement, which was disappointing.

Anyway, to wrap it all up, I think this is a beautiful graphic novel, but the story was a bit lacking for me. 3 out of 5 stars, ★★★☆☆