With thanks to netgalley and the author

Sadly I didn't download this title in time.

So can't really give a review

"The Princess of Cleves" is an okay, graphic novel adaptation. The art was great and the story was simple and easy to follow. I just wish it had been a little more interesting story-wise.

This was the first historical graphic novel that I read that was set in France. I thought the story was very excellent and moved at a steady pace. The best part of this book were the beautiful illustrations!

'The Princess of Cleves' by Madame de La Fayette with script and art by Catel and Claire Bouilhac is a graphic novel adaptation of a classic 17th century French novel.

Mademoiselle de Chartres and her interactions with the French royal court are what comprise this story. When an arranged marriage makes her the Princess of Cleves, it would seem her life is set. Then she meets the handsome Duke de Nemours and the rest of the story is about the Duke pursuing and the Princess denying. For fun, there is an imaginary interview with the original author as a fun extra.

I'm not familiar with the original novel, but this has the feel of classic literature. The art is quite nice, but the story takes place over a period of time and the characters feel a bit static for the length of time. There are also some fairly long stretches of exposition that slow the narrative flow down.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Europe Comics and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

A historical piece that will be very appreciated by those looking to read graphic novels that have a lot of non-fiction value and some good sequential storytelling.

Amazing and detailled art style to follow this amazing story. I knew of the name of the novel, but i never read it, and now I really want to get to know it! I'm already searching it up to read it!

The Princess of Cleves art style was absolutely beautiful. I appreciate the detail that went into the character's and their outfits. It felt like I was being transported into that time period.
I'm not very familiar with the story that this was based on, however I found the story itself easy to follow without needing the background information.
I will say that I struggled with the speech bubbles and their placement. I found myself having to back track often because I missed a box, or missed something. This made for the reading experience to be a bit difficult for me to stay engaged in.

I'm not familiar with the book that this graphic novel is based off so I can't comment on how well it works as an adaptation.

I quite enjoyed this. It's different from the usual graphic novel fare and the art style was ok, even if it did take some time to get used to.

The real issue was the layout and structure of the graphic novel itself. The dialogue bubbles were confusing and the layout of panels wasn't always coherent. This lead to me getting frustrated and it really impacted on my immersion into the story.

So lush and lovely. The art style was incredible, and I really enjoyed the authors' takes on the classical psychological novel. On the whole, an enjoyable experience!

This book was for me on paper, I really am a fan of classics and I love when classics are made into Graphic Novels, but this was so disappointing, I did not enjoy the art style, it looks like a different artist did the cover as that's what really drew me in. The speech bubbles were really confusing as well, I found myself having to recheck who was speaking all the time.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing this ARC for an honest review

I didn't like anything but the fault was mine I was expecting something from the book which ended up disappointing me. But the story and the art style were not my favorites and did not help me to like the story.

This might be fine for people eager to know if the Duke of Whojammaflip gets into bed with the Vice-Duchountess of Pompidou, but this sort of thing is just not for me.

This is a lovely graphic novel adaptation of La Princesse de Cleves, written in the 1600s by Madame de la Fayette. It is a convoluted story of the intrigues of the French court, and of a young woman who must decide whether to a be a virtuous wife, or an impassioned lover.

I'm really glad that I was able to download a copy of this graphic novel from NetGalley, as I really enjoyed the story, but probably would have found the original novel a little dense or difficult to understand.

Saying that, though, I don't know if this story really lends itself to a graphic novel format. I enjoyed the costumes, hairstyles and the illustrator was certainly good at showing clearly different faces and characters, but it felt more like an abridged version of the story, rather than a graphic novel.

I did enjoy the story - a young woman, new to the court of France, is remarkable for her incredible beauty. She quickly marries a man who is in love with her, but she feels very little except regard and duty towards him - she has never experienced love before and doesn't know how forceful and intense it can be, until she meets the Prince of Nemours, to whom she feels an instant attraction. In order to maintain her virtue, she makes every effort to avoid him, withdrawing from society, but appears to be relentlessly pursued. She finally admits to her husband the attraction that she feels for another man but with promises that she would never act on it, only for her husband to be consumed by fear and jealousy, watching her every move.

Written about a clearly restricted time, where women were beautiful objects, the Princess of Cleves has elements of Greek tragedy, where the female protagonist silently fights for autonomy. At one point, she makes an excellent speech about how she cannot risk her own moral virtue by marrying the Prince de Nemours, even though there is nothing left to stop her, and suggesting that it was the chase that made her so attractive to him.

It is clever, and it is psychological - the loss of control, the sense of being chased. All of which I enjoyed, as I did the illustrations of costumes and cities.

I quite enjoyed the graphic novel. And i feel like the author did a good job of making the medium work for the story they wanted to tell. I do think that on some planes it was quite hard to tell who was saying what because the speech bubbles were a bit erratic. But over all I feel like I learned a lot.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC.

I enjoyed the story overall!
I would like to thank the publisher for giving me a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I liked the story and how it worked well as a graphic novel form. I liked the art style of the novel. I have never read the original work, but I am now interested in maybe reading it someday.

As I dive deeper into the different types of how a story is told, I decided to give this particular work of art a chance. I must admit that I have not read the original story of Madame de Lafayette, and I am also not very familiar with this part of history. This may be the reason why this particular story was not for me. However I understand why at it’s time (in the XVII century), The Princess of Clèves could have been a bigger thing.

But coming back to the present time, the story was very bland to me. It was short and pointless. There where far too many characters to remember the names, and many of them just look very similar to one another. The pictures where drawn very sweetly, and The Princess was certainly a beauty, but the other characters where confusing.

Maybe it was because, as I said, I am not too familiar with the original story, but this was not enjoyable for me. Perhaps if I had more knowledge about it and it was a story I had previously enjoyed, this book would have been a nice addition to a collection.

As of last, I wanna make clear that it is not a bad story, it was good. Just maybe not up to the standards of someone of the XXI century.

Thank you to Europe Comics for a temporary digital edition via NetGalley of the graphic novel, ‘The Princess of Clèves’ by Madame de La Fayette, illustrated by Catel Muller and Claire Bouilhac, in exchange for an honest review.

It was translated from the French by Mercedes Claire Gilliom. She opens the graphic novel with ‘a note from the translator’ to explain how this 17th Century French novel came to be adapted as a graphic novel by Catel and Bouilhac and her approach to its English translation.

From the publisher: “Entering life at the French royal court, a world in which “what is shown is rarely the truth,” the young Princess of Clèves learns of passion’s torments, of heartbreak, and of the agony of love.”

While originally written and published in the 1670s, it is set over a century earlier in the court of Henry II of France and is an early historical novel. While its main character is fictional, most of the other characters are historical figures. The graphic novel opens with a useful genealogy to help keep track of who is who and their relationships.

I liked that the opening had Madame de La Fayette in 1672 discussing the premise of the novel with her mentor and friend, Francois de La Rochefoucauld, and saying that she would draw on her own experiences as a young woman at the Court of Louis XIV to write a historical romance. The final pages of the novel has Madame de La Fayette in 1680 after ‘The Princess of Clèves’ has become a literary sensation even though published anonymously.

The artwork was amazing and very detailed capturing the fashions, decor, and architecture of the period. The central romance is poignant and captures a sense of the court with its gossip and intrigues.

I will admit that I had not heard of this novel prior to seeing this graphic novel adaptation. After reading it I am now curious to read the original novel.

Introducing people to classics via period dramas and graphic novels seems an excellent way to revitalise them for new generations. There is a timelessness to ‘The Princess of Clèves’ that was beautifully captured here.

Well done Europe Comics!

This is a graphic novel adaptation of a 17th century novel written by a French noblewoman. I have not read the original novel, though having read this adaptation I am considering seeking out an English translation of the original. Since I came into the work expecting a nonfiction biography, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was a much more engaging and interesting work. Thisa adaptation did well in selecting pivotal dramatic moments and demonstrating the psychological anguish and development of the main characters as a result of their relationships with one another and their individual (mis)apprehensions of their relationships.

The artwork has a somewhat French, or at least European feel to it. I was put in mind of the vintage style of illustration used in fashion plates, though the colors were somewhat unpleasing to the eye, being a good deal less vibrant and more heavily applied than I would have liked. It seemed almost to present a clash between the subtle, artistic nature of the work and the flatness of the colors, which lacked shading or nuance. In my opinion, the best parts were the panels without any dialogue showing the interaction between Clèves and her cat. I genuinely enjoyed those because they conveyed more emotion than the rest of the art. I must assume that in the novel as written, much is said about the main character and her cat.

Mixed on the images, they are nicely detailed but for me not totally sold on them. A good look at what the princess and a few people close to her would have done in certain time frame of her life in the French court. Do get a family tree at the beginning. Easy to read the text.