A book that will make you so feel so bad that you are part of a humanity that allows this kind of thing to happen. Events that happen in the book are awful. Yes, these specific events are fictional. They are based on things that have actually happened though and the doctors in the book are real. The main doctor won the Nobel Peace Prize in real life.

The story is about a young brother and sister in a small village in the Congo. Their whole village is brutally murdered. Meanwhile a young employee of a Dutch multinational is sent there to find a new Warlord to take over. Once he gets there and finds out what is really happening he decides to help.

This book will absolutely wreck you. The atrocities are gut wrenching.

This book was full of disturbing and heart breaking events. It felt more like a non fiction to me as these events are still happening in our world. Dive inside without reading much about it. Amazing work!

Really horrible disturbing subject matter based on real people and sadly, real events that go on every day in the Congo.
Money clearly rules all in a place where everyone we as westerners would normally turn to for help are the scariest people of all - when the army, the police and your government is so incredibly corrupt there are few people you can trust and life is just huge nightmare.

This graphic novel was just confusing to me. I couldn’t keep up with what was happening around me in this story. 2.5/5 stars. The art was beautiful though.

This is an interesting graphic novel. The art style is alright, but it really shines with its story. I'll be looking into more on this.

A lovely graphic novel adaptation that is engaging with lovely lines and story arc. I would definitely recommend this title to my students and my friends!

Very important and moving story. I enjoyed both the writing and the artwork. Really fantastic read and one I would recommend.

This book was heartbreaking, but also had it’s beautiful moments.
This story is brutal. And you really see the difference between the good and the bad guys. I had my heart in my throat the whole time, and could not put down this book until the very end. I devoured this book in about an hour.

Than you so much to NetGalley for the free copy in extange for a review. I loved the book.

A book that's full of polemical speechifying – but a rare instance of that being fully justified. A small car accident leads a Belgian worker in DRC to learn all about the paramilitary activity in the country, where anyone and everyone is ripe for being tortured and murdered in just the worst ways, and where any woman or child can be raped any end up, all because such horrid activities serve so many colonial masters. Oh, and so that w*nkers can buy the new iPhone every two years. It's a much under-reported subject, how the rare minerals in that part of Africa are needed by such tech – and of course it's much better to pay violent people from the country next door rather than ever try and recycle the materials once they've been used in someone's smartphone.

Diatribe over – and it's just more evidence that such a galling subject can lead the blood to rise. This is wordy and unrealistic in narrative ways but probably too, too honest in other ways. It certainly deserves to be read – it's just not a book you could ever pretend you liked or enjoyed.

'Kivu' by Jean Van Hamme with art by Christophe Simon is a story filled with corruption and violence, and is based on true events happening in our world today in the places where the rare earth we need for our devices comes from.

In Kivu, corrupt officials bribe each other and look the other way to get the things needed to build phones and computers. The people in this country are killed and mutilated along the way. A doctor working there does work to heal the damage.

In this story, a young naive man, named Stephane, is sent to Kivu with a pile of money and some strict instructions. When he lands in the country, he meets a young girl that soldiers want to question. She and her brother murdered a man in self-defense, but that's not how the government sees it. Stephane steps in and risks his own life to save this young girl and what remains of her family.

There are some brutal and sick people in the world. People who will torture and rape and mutilate. Much of that is talked about in this book, but, thankfully, not illustrated. The story feels a bit like a history lesson disguised as a graphic novel. The story moves along, but there is a lot of infodumping along the way. I'm not sure there is a better way to tell this story, and I did like it. I like that there are a couple characters from real life in the story.

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.

Apologies from me but I cant really read a book that depicts near rape, and other violence. I have rated it 5 stars because I need to give it a star rating.

Europe, in the 1800s, decided to carve up Africa into their colonies. There was so much mineral wealth, so many natural resources, that the European nations could hardly contain themselves.

Most Americans know the history of the British colonies, somewhat. They know who are members of the Commonwealth. But we Americans are not aware of of the French, Portuguese, Belgian, and German colonies. I'm sure we have heard of the Belgian Congo, but most Americans could not find it on a map, and probably would have no idea why they would want to.

This graphic novel talks about what it is like now, in the Congo, and what years of colonization and then liberation have done to the country, which is in a civil war, and committing genocide wherever and whenever they can. It is a very sad state of affairs, but it serves as a backdrop for this story about Stéphane, all innocent, who goes there to work for a multinational company, and sees the corruption and the raping, and the killing, and wants to do something about it.

But, no it isn't really a white savior story. Because the people he works with to do this, are people from the country. As is pointed out often, he doesn't know the language, and he doesn't' know the area. The people have lived there all their lives, so they know the lay of the land.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5161" src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/kivu1.png" alt="Kivu" />
<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5162" src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/kivu2.png" alt="Kivu" />

In fact, if it weren't for them, he would have been killed many times over.

Very good book, showing the horrors of the region, and the mess the European colonists left be hind.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.