All the smiling people are very disturbing, I'm not sure how anyone else just accepts this all as normal! The ads were a good touch through the book. Some were funny, like organic larva to eat, but some really sinister too.

CityZen is a solid eco-fable with fairly classic bandes desinee art style and structure; the cartooning is solid and expressive, and the colors are vibrant, a little flat. It has something of a pat ending, but a few interesting twists and turns. Execution of some of the wilder, more poetic ideas can sometimes be a little flat (an important moment where characters airlift-by-doves comes off as a little underwhelming) but all-in-all it's a solid tale that points toward the perils of unmonitored machine learning used in decision making, though one character's solutions to ecological problems veer uncomfortably into eugenics territory.

This was such a unique feeling story, I enjoyed the futuristic vibes. My favorite part was the advertisement pages scattered throughout.

City Zen is a graphic novel that brings the environmental issue to its theme with a post-apocalyptic setting. Well, even though I like the illustration, I think the plot was just good. Nothing makes me get attached to the characters.

Stunning book with great graphics and a amazing story! The characters were lovely and easy to connect with! Definitely a book worth 5 stars!

On the surface, CityZen appears to be the perfect utopia and answer to the earth’s environmental problems. But as Amal and her friends soon discover, all is not as it seems.
I really enjoyed this read- despite the dystopian elements there was certainly a message of hope that will resonate with the young adult audience. I liked the originality of the post-apocalyptic setting, and how this originality fed into illustrating how CityZen functioned. The illustrations complemented the story brilliantly. The way that colour was used to indicate social groups, families and hierarchies was subtle but clever. A great debut from Zain and timely read during the COP27 conference.

Thank you to Netgalley and Europa Comics for my digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for this ebook. I was curious to read this comic because of the setting. CityZen is an eco-friendly city that uses its incredible trees to heal a post-apocalyptic Earth. I was definitely not disappointed by this aspect. It was very interesting and the art added an extra beautiful aspect to the post-apocalyptic environment.

The story and characters were ok. Nothing that surprised me or disappoint me. It was ok on these aspects. A little short for me to get attached to any of the characters.

I recommend this for the setting and the discussions around environment, evolution and the human - nature connection.

Absolutely jaw-dropping illustrations and a story to follow suit. I read this so quickly I almost felt like it was over too soon. I hope to see more like this because the ending was just as enjoyful and I'm saddened to stop.

"CityZen" is a beautifully illustrated graphic novel set in a seemingly utopia future that has quite a few sinister secrets. Amal just wants to be a model citizen, but after her anarchist sister goes missing her life takes an unexpected turn. I enjoyed reading this graphic novel and loved the illustrations.

This was an interesting concept! However, I thought it was too quick and because of that there's not much character development and it all felt rushed. I also didn't like spoiler (that the two characters who died were poc).

A really awesome concept! The major issue is the writing. It is incredibly dense with exposition and cliches. This doesn't take away from the cool story with interesting themes and really great art direction. I think it could be incredible, but instead it just winds up being cool and good.

I was really excited to read this since it was pitched as a post apocalyptic story. But overall this felt very underwhelming.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

CityZen is set in a post-apocalyptic world, where humanity has made genetically engineered trees to combat a pollution crisis. Amal is committed to the goals of CityZen and wants to help further its goals once graduated. But her sister Sana, who is part of an activist moment, stumbles upon the plot which leads to realizing the truth behind CityZen and its "goal". I did like that while this is a post-apocalyptic story, they made it super colorful. Normally post-apocalypse stories are very gray and dim; not so in CityZen. The special pollution-reducing forest is bright pink! The style and fashion in the story feel like an odd bit early 2000s version of retro-futurism. It's like whoever did the designs used the idea of what people in 2005 would think the future would look like. I also thought the character designs were sort of odd. There would be families where no one has any features that would signify that they're related, but weirdly enough that actually gets explained in the story. The plot was interesting, but since it moved so quickly, there was no way to build proper suspense. Also, events happened so quickly, it felt like you were being tossed from scene to scene. One minor thing is the way that the teenagers are drawn, almost all suffer from the same-face syndrome, which annoyed me. The girls all have the "stereotypical pretty girl" face and the one boy looks like an adult man with how he's drawn. The expressions felt oddly muted, even in more intense scenes. The overall story was interesting, and I did like the concept as a whole, but it just felt a little stale with its execution. If the book was a series or a bit longer, I feel like they could have really built the suspense. Anytime there was a reveal, all I could think was, "Oh...that's it?". Which sucks, because the opening scene was so strong! It instantly intrigued me and made me want to read on to find out what was happening. I honestly think this would work really well as an animated series.