bookheaven | We Called Them Giants (Reply)

We Called Them Giants by Kieron Gillen

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Like many of the other reviews I see for this, I also felt the art was really amazing but the story fell a little flat. In full disclosure I don't like dystopias so I wouldn't have bought this for myself but the library had it so why not?

Lori is a cynical young woman for reasons. Everyone leaves her, her parents, her foster parents and she's sure soon her adoptive ones will too and she's right. But almost everyone has disappeared. We don't know why (Minor spoiler: we never know why) Almost everyone is gone but she finds a bubbly (and she thinks not quite so bright) girl named Annette. Together they scavenge the remains of their town.

There are only a few other people there, most noteably an old woman (Beatrice) and the violent Dogs (a gang who is trying to get all the food). In the woods are two giants, one red, one green and we have no idea where they came from or why or what they want.

The three women eventually band together and the red giant plays a large role with them against the Dogs and the actual wolves that are going after the human survivors.

The story hits hard on how people get along to survive but also how our assumptions and life experiences color our actions for right or wrong. Lori's bad life experiences led her to make some costly mistakes and like several others I wasn't particularly happy with the ending. I think one of the reason the story might have been a bit of a miss for me is also there were too many unanswered questions for my tastes.

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