AUTHOR: : Koldo Almandoz
PUBLISHER: Nuevo Nueve
GENRE: Graphic novel
READER’S NAME: Andrea Shah
DATE: August 18th, 2023

Natasha is a fresh, contemporary coming-of-age story that explores how sharing explicit videos on social media affects the lives of those directly involved, and everyone around them.

Set in a small town in the Basque region of Spain, the book opens with scenes of Natasha partying—doing drugs and having sex with two classmates—that an unseen individual records on their phone. Before long, the video is circulating around her high school, and classmates bombard Natasha with cruel messages. She and her mother argue over whether to file a report about the incident, and ultimately Natasha spirals until she’s on the verge of suicide.

Fast forward a year, and Natasha is moving into a shared apartment, ready to study architecture at university after a gap year out of the country. Despite her initial uncertainty, she quickly befriends her two roommates, the feisty Elena and the more serious Ame. She joins a band with Elena and another friend, explores the city, visits the beach, and struggles to feel comfortable with a “normal” social life—including social media.

Everything comes to a head when Natasha runs into Julen, one of the young men in the video, bringing back memories of what happened. She begins to explore the potential for a new relationship with him. At the same time, she finds herself able to open up to Elena about the video, how it affected her, and how she sees her own sexuality.

The story also addresses Natasha’s unusual position in rural Basque country as an adoptee from Ukraine, raised by a single mother, and how that affects others’ perception of her behavior.

The book was written by Koldo Almandoz, with illustrations by Aritz Trueba. In an afterword, the two explain that they grew up across the hall from one another in an apartment building in Donostia (Spanish: San Sebastián), and their families have been friends for 50 years. Almandoz is a filmmaker whose work has appeared at film festivals in Cannes, San Sebastian, and Rotterdam, while Trueba has worked in animation, designed coloring books, and illustrated comics. The two received a grant from the Basque government to create Natasha.

Trueba’s illustrations, done in shades of gray, are bold and vivid, evoking Natasha’s interior confusion as well as her growth as a character.

The book takes a sensitive approach to issues of teenage sexuality, social media, and adoptive identity. Its themes remain on topic for both younger people and parents, and they are depicted without ever passing judgment on the characters. Similarly, it addresses the double standards inherent in how adults and peers treat Natasha and her male classmates in the wake of the incident, which will resonate with young female readers.

The subject matter is extremely relevant for U.S. readers, especially young adults. However, it’s worth noting that there are several spreads that depict nudity and sexual encounters, including one that shows events from the inciting video, where Natasha is presumably under 18. Given the current climate in the United States, this may make it controversial, especially in school libraries.

The main challenge a translator will face is rendering the content in English while communicating the interplay between Basque culture and broader Spanish culture. The dialogue has Basque words sprinkled throughout, and there is subtext that may not be apparent to the American reader. There is also the challenge of conveying the distinct voices of the three main characters (Natasha, Elena, and Ane) in dialogue. Finally, there are several text message conversations (between Natasha and Julen, Natasha and her mother, and the texts Natasha receives from her classmates) that require creative translation to sound realistic to American students of the same age.