Cover Image: Enemy Alien

Enemy Alien

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Member Reviews

It hard to imagine how it feels for your freedom to be curtailed in a foreign land. In this book, we will experience such kind of dilemma.

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I wish this had been marked as only an excerpt because it was jarring to come to such an abrupt end. That being said, it was my first experience with a graphic novel and, when combined with my love of history, it was a fantastic first experience and I will probably buy the published final version of the book.

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This graphic memoir treatment of the WWI Canadian internment operations as seen through the eyes of one prisoner is a welcome addition to a growing body of literature on this era. Kassandra Luciuk has researched well, using words from the papers of an actual internee to recreate his day to day existence in the internment camp at Kapuskasing. Nicole marie burton's artwork is effective and engaging and it fleshes out the sparse text. Hoping this gets a wide readership. #enemyalien #netgalley

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It's been a long time since a publisher dared to produce an extract in place of the full kahuna for a netgalley file, especially without advertising it as an extract, and it's certainly been a long time since that sinful behaviour has annoyed me more. For I would have loved this book. The introduction was fine, and so the editorialising around this anonymous memoir has to go down as a success, fitting nicely around the core text and presenting it very well. There is some overlap (the main narrator is forced to give us the same facts the introduction does very early on), but the voice of the lead character is great, bitterly but reasonably telling us how it was to be a slave labourer in an internment camp for Ukrainians (and Germans and Turks etc) by Canada in World War One. I've got six entrance to Ukraine stamps in my passport, so I really was looking forward to filling in this gap in my knowledge, and comparing it to another interest of mine, the WWII Holocaust. I hardly got so far, for this book showed us all its academic virtues, and many of the ligne claire-styled artwork besides, then stopped with the apparent completion of the camp. With so much of the real thing unseen it's only logical for me to admit that fact, but it's not that reasonable for me to downgrade the book as a result. It does look mighty fine, and an important piece of literature, especially for those with vested or academic interests. A potential five stars – and certainly a good four.

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WWI Internment Camp in Canada

This is about Ukrainian people in an internment camp in Canada during WWI. There is an interesting introduction explaining the book and about the Canadian internment system.

The Ukrainians were told if they immigrated to Canada there would be jobs for them. After they immigrated they found that they were placed in an internment camp and sold to companies to work for them.

The story is told in a short graphic novel depicting the story.

There was some good information that I did not know about WWI. It was written in an unfamiliar style which I was not used to.

Thanks to Cassandra Lucius and Nicole Marie Burton,the authors, Between the Lines the lines publishing, and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of the book.

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