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Technical specs

Portuguese title: A época das rosas
240 pages / 165 x 230 mm
ISBN: 9789898145307 / RRP: 18,90€
First edition: June 2020

Season of Roses

Chloé Wary

(Portuguese edition)

The “Roses of Rosigny” is the name of the female football team at Rosigny-sur-Seine — a fictional neighbourhood in the suburbs of a large city.

The “Roses” are a united and determined team, with an ambitious goal for the upcoming season: to qualify for the U19, the national female championship. But following a major cut to the club’s subsidies, its director decides not to put the “Roses” forward, focusing only on the male team.

Barbara — the team captain — is devastated by this injustice and decides to take action: she encourages her team mates to find sponsors and challenges the male team to a match, believing that the final score will make the club change its mind.

But it’s not that simple, and Barbara faces challenges in relation to many areas of her life: her mother, her studies and — reading between the lines — her role in the club, her city, the world.

In the process, Barbara learns about herself, about making choices and about standing by one’s convictions.

That’s what’s at play.

Recommended for readers aged 15 and over.

This graphic novel is part of the 2 Steps and a Leap collection.

EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK

Technical specs

Portuguese title: A época das rosas
240 pages / 165 x 230 mm
ISBN: 9789898145307 / RRP: 18,90€
First edition: June 2020

Awards and recognitions

Recommended — National Reading Plan (Portugal)

Nominated — Best book by a foreign Illustrator, BD Amadora Festival Awards (2020)

Winner — BD Angoulême Festival 2020 / France Télévisions Public Award

Winner — Nouvelle-Aquitaine Youth Award (2019)

Winner — Artémisia Empowerment Award (2020)

Winner — Great comics award Golden Globos Colomiers (2019)

Selected — Young revelation award ADAGP/ Quai des Bulles (2019)

What they say

(…) around female football, “Season of Roses” is the book about girls that all boys should read.
Henrique Raposo, Expresso newspaper, 5/12/2022

By putting at centre stage a group of teenage girls confronting a sexist environment, the author speaks about female emancipation, solidarity, and transition to adulthood.
Norine Raja, Vanity Fair

Chloé Wary, with an eagle eye, captures not only the differences and inequality between the sexes, but also the tumultuous nature of adolescence, with Barbara’s room containing it all: hormonal rage, the discovery and explosion of one’s body, and the cold, stormy relationship between Barbara and her mother.
Pedro Miguel Silva, Deus Me Livro, 23/09/2020

An engaging and colourful book about youth and the suburbs.
Vincent Brunner, Les Inrockuptibles

A book which manages to pluck at the many affective and emotional chords that accompany our path through life.
Sara Figueiredo Costa, Expresso newspaper, 7/09/2020

Allusions to an absent father (…), to a difficult mother-daughter relationship, to a romance with a player on the male team, to frustrations and to fears. The author weaves together all these moments within a landscape which, although fictitious (…), is recognisably that of Parisian suburbs (…). Season of Roses is a homage to that space and to the people who give it life, to their hopes and disappointments.
José Marmeleira, Público newspaper, 27/07/2020

Finding out the result of the match and its consequences will depend on whether one takes up the challenge of reading this book, aware that the time for fairytales has long since passed, though the ability to dream remains, even when one lives in the suburbs and one’s reality is full of crises and populism.
F. Cleto e Pina, Jornal de Notícias newspaper, 31/08/2020

It is editorial endeavours such as this one which guarantee that a real contribution is made to bringing diverse voices and broadened access to comics in Portugal. (…)
A frank, direct book which is genuine in its receptivity, with the verve of adolescence – its natural home.
Pedro Moura, Ler BD blog, 20/07/2020