Why I Killed Peter

by Olivier Ka and Alfred

This graphic novel about surviving childhood sexual abuse and confronting one's abuser was a bit of a disappointment. The storytelling and artwork are good, but the story itself somehow felt a bit hollow or something.

Supposedly the process of creating this work was part of the author's effort to purge a lot of negative emotion and come clean, so to speak. I couldn't help wondering, though, if he didn't hold back the whole truth of what happened to him. The experience he describes is very wrong and shouldn't have happened, of course, but it comes across as more creepy and uncomfortable than as something violently or violatingly sexual that would haunt someone as an adult. But I don't know what it's like, and I try not to begrudge anyone their emotional reactions to the things they experience. I just felt that, if he did hold something back, the omission or incomplete confession would undermine the stated mission of putting it all out there and letting it go.

Also, his attempt to confront his abuser as an adult was anticlimactic, apparently even for him.

Also, no one gets killed.