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Aya De Yopougon ; Tome 2 (2013)

by Marguerite Abouet(Favorite Author)

3.82 of 5 Votes: 1

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Paris : Folio

review 1: “Aya of Yop City”, is a graphic novel that follows the lives many Ivorian Coast people. In the beginning of the novel, there was conflict about who was Bobby’s (Adjoua’s son) real father was because he did not look like his mother nor did he look like Moussa (the boy that Adjoua claimed to be his father). And Bonaventure Sissoko a rich man who was Moussa’s father; did not believe that Moussa was Bobby’s and was angry at the fact that Moussa had to claim Bobby as his son because Adjoua’s family was poor. So, he gave Adjoua and her family one week to figure out who is real father was or else he would take matters into his own hands. Luckily, Hyacinte (Adjoua’s dad) went on a scavenger hunt looking for men in their village that looked like Bobby, because he e... moreventually found a man named Mamadou who turned out to be Bobby’s real dad. Adjoua had two close friends in her village that helped her take care of Bobby- Aya and Bintou. Aya took care of Bobby like she was her his mother while Bintou took care of him once in a while. When Bintou was not taking care of Bobby she was with her so called “French Parisian” who toke gave her everything that she desired. But after she left his hotel room she never received calls from him again. So she went searching for him eventually finding him on the side of the street homeless. In Aya’s house, her father (Ignace) was never at home because he claimed that he was working in Yamoussoukro which was miles away from their house. Ignace had a secretary that worked for him in Yamoussoukro and eventually got fired. When she got fired she called Ignace every night before he went to sleep (at his actually house). On the phone Ignace talked about how he was trying to get her job back to her because he missed the stuff that they use to do. One day she showed up to Ignace’s house with two children holding her hands and was yelling Ignace’s name, because she could no longer continue to provide for Ignace and her children by herself. This novel is engaging because in every panel characters express themselves in unique ways. In the novel the characters express their emotions oral and physically. For example: Mamadou tells the reader that he does not want to have anything to do with Bobby (his son), because on page twenty seven in the first two panels he looked very calm about his father and Hyacinte talking Adjodua and Bobby. But in the third panel he squints he’s eyes like he’s in pain when Hyacinte says, “She didn’t make this baby on her own. Your son may be irresponsible, but he’s got to recognize the child as his.” Hyacinte shows the reader what a thoughtful father he is to Adjodua by setting rules on the table for Mamadou to follow. “….Your son has to give her [Adjodua] money every month. And I’ll be the one to make sure he does (pg. 27)!” Because he most African houses if a child does something regretful, their parents will force them to find a solution to their own problem. When Aya asked her father if she could go to Yamoussoukro with him to see his office and spend time with him, he says, “I rather she takes care of Akissi and Fofana (Aya’s siblings)” and “doesn’t she see me every day (pg. 62),” so his family members will not find out that he has affairs with other woman at work and with prostitutes. Because when he was driving pass a woman on the street she said, “hey... you’ve got a new girl and now you don’t know me?” This shows that he had some type of inappropriate relationship with the woman in the past. The way charterers interacted with one another was based on their African culture. For example: when Hyacinte took pictures of the people with Bobby he said “please no smiling (pg. 8)” to the people because in African culture it is peculiar to smile when taking pictures even if someone is excited. Bonsventure Sissoko was against the fact that Moussa and Adjoua were going to get married because, “rich [Sissoko’s family] and poor [Hyacinte’s family] don’t marry (pg. 15). If Moussa and Adjoua did end up getting married then their marriage would have lowered the way that society viewed Sissoko and his family, because one’s ranking in a hierarchy was very important back then. In the novel, Adjoua sold “hot fritters” (pg. 30) on the side of a market to make enough money to provide for herself and Bobby. For instance, when my mom lived in Nigeria she used to sell plantain chips and meat pie on the side of the road, to help my grandma with money. The characters in the novel used literary devices to emphasize the importance of a particular situation. When Korotoumou (Adjoua’s mother) and Hyacinte were looking through pictures to figure out which man looked closely related to Bobby, Korotoumou said, “even a blind an could see that” (pg. 12), to tell Hyacinte that one of the men he thought looked like Bobby looked nothing like him at all. Adjoua uses a cliché, “Bintou, you’re not in my shoes” (pg. 13), to prove to Bintou that telling her father who Bobby’s real dad is, is not as easy as it may seem. Because she’ll have to go through her father’s screaming on top of Bobby’s crying, but Bintou does not understand because she did not get pregnant like Adjoua did. Hyacinte uses a euphemism, “which is why your son Moussa doesn’t look like your charming wife “(pg. 2), to cover up the fact that Sissoko’s wife is unattractive. Because charming is a word that is commonly used by people to complement a guy. I highly recommend this book to people from the ages of fifteen and over that like to learn about how people from different continents may live their lives.
review 2: While Aya's name is in the title, she's too good to have much of a story. So most of this is about her family and friends, and all their wicked ways. Her girlfriends are a couple of gold-diggers, her dad and most of the other men chase skirts, and Aya's left with nobody to love but her mom and her girldfriend's baby. I'm guessing that changes in the next few volumes, but for now that's how it goes.There's nothing so unusual about this plotline, as the author herself says. The interest here is in the background--Ivory Coast culture, which is so ingrained in the novel that I was starting to feel a part of it. When the first (and only, and a total walk-on) white character appeared on page 328, he looked funny. less

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