Publisher's Weekly Review
Greenberg's haunting first graphic novel, The Encyclopedia of Early Earth, made her an instant critical darling. In her follow-up, she returns to Early Earth, a three-mooned world of myth and magical realism, for a collection of feminist stories about "bad husbands and murderous wives and mad gods and brave women who don't take shit from anyone." In a frame story borrowed from The Thousand and One Nights, two women hold off a rapacious man by telling stories within stories, usually about other women getting themselves in and out of danger. Greenberg combines elements from fairy tales, children's books, and folklore from around the world to create an original but teasingly familiar mythos. Above all, it's a book about the power of storytelling, populating Early Earth with a secret society of storytellers, a grove of memory trees, and women treasuring literacy in defiance of a stern bird god. Greenberg's primitive woodcut-style illustrations suggest folk art from another planet. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* With immersive storytelling and a wry sense of humor, Greenberg's latest, after The Encyclopedia of Early Earth (2013), regales readers with a series of tales that seem both timely and timeless. In a world presided over by an egomaniacal god called Birdman, women, nearly powerless, are forbidden from reading and writing. The story begins with two men, Jerome and Manfred, making a wager: If Manfred can take Jerome's wife's virtue, he gets both his wife and castle. Jerome's wife, Cherry, however, is remarkably clever (and Jerome is terribly dumb), so she and her lover, Hero, who's posing as her maid, enact a plan to foil Manfred's ham-fisted scheme. So begins 100 nights of vivid, enchanting stories about love, betrayal, family, and loyalty, and, Scheherazade-style, Cherry and Hero handily distract Manfred from his plan while spreading their stories throughout the land. Greenberg weaves classic fairy-tale tropes through the tales such as magic pebbles, brave sisters, and angry kings and some are undeniably drawn from familiar stories. But there's a distinctly modern sensibility to the message here, which makes the tales remarkably fresh. Greenberg's thickly drawn figures and scenes, rendered in blacks and grays with warm washes of color, look like offbeat folk art, echoing the archetypal nature of the tales. Greenberg's lush world building, captivating storytelling, and idiosyncratic artwork will easily entrance fans of literary graphic novels.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2016 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Beautiful and imaginative, One Hundred Nights of Hero begins, as all good stories do, with a creation myth. The young goddess Kiddo devises a world and delights in watching over its simple yet happy occupants from afar. Her father, the arrogant god BirdMan, doesn't see the point of building a society if it doesn't mean being worshipped for it. He blights Kiddo's universe with a tyrannical BirdMan-centric religion, which promptly leads to miseries we recognize from our own reality. In this troubled realm, a man named Jerome makes a bet with Manfred that Jerome's wife, Cherry, will remain true for 100 nights. If Cherry falters in her virtue, Manfred can keep Jerome's castle and Cherry herself. Fortunately, Cherry's lover/maid Hero is a member of the shadowy League of Secret Story Tellers. Every night, before Manfred makes his attempts on Cherry, Hero transfixes him with a tale. As with any talented Scheherazade, Hero ends each evening on a cliff-hanger. Before Manfred knows it, weeks have passed, and he's gotten nowhere. Verdict Greenberg (The Encyclopedia of Early Earth) is a staunch believer in the power of stories, and, like Manfred, readers get sucked into each one she tells. Highly recommended for adult readers, especially those who enjoy mythology and fable.-Ingrid Bohnenkamp, Springfield-Greene Cty. Lib. Dist., MO © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
