Everyone is holding Amélie down. Dutch society of the mid-sixteenth century tells her that she must be the perfect wife, cooking, cleaning, and supporting her husband, as well as sleeping with him whenever he wants. Hans, the husband in question, tells her that she should focus on housework and not his business. And God tells her that there's only one right way to be a good woman, even though He has also seen fit to give her a mind that yearns for answers about the natural world. It's only in looking to the sky that Amélie can feel like herself, for, as creator Yudori says in both the opening and closing lines of the book, “She looked at the land. It was taken by men. She looked at the sea. It was also taken by men. So Amélie turned her head to the sky.”

It's a powerful statement. In Amélie's views, she has no place on either land or sea, the two most significant spaces in Dutch life, while the sky is viewed as strictly being God's domain. Or at least, men see it as being God's domain – for Amélie, it's simply the only place where she has any hope of escaping men's domination. It also demonstrates that she's more engaged with science than religion. Because of certain religious groups of the time, her desire to use the sky as a scientific inquiry (and freedom) could be seen as a direct slight against the church. She's quite literally trespassing on God's domain in her bid to be seen as a full person, something her society tells her she's not.

Raging Clouds understands that its heroine is trapped, and that makes it fascinating, a bitter look at what its heroine must face because of the time and place when she was born a woman. Yudori uses few words to tell the tale, mostly allowing her art to show us Amélie's unhappiness and the freedom she feels when Hans is away for far longer than expected on a merchant voyage. When Hans is gone, Amélie doesn't put up her hair. She eats what and when she wants. And even more importantly, she studies the birds, desperate to understand what allows them to fly. Although it isn't explicitly stated, it's clear that Amélie hopes to escape her life like a bird does, although whether she intends that literally or figuratively isn't entirely clear. Perhaps it doesn't matter – she wants to use her time while Hans is away for herself and her own pursuits, to feel like herself.

Of course, Hans does eventually come back, and he brings with him a foreign woman he bought at a slave market because he felt sorry for her – or at least, that's what he tells his wife; the truth, when it comes out, turns out to be much different. (This is a good point to mention that there's some casual racism and antisemitism “appropriate” to the setting.) Amélie feels hurt, especially since she still has to endure sex with Hans, something the art makes very clear she doesn't enjoy. But mostly Hans' return, with or without another woman, drives home to Amélie how very trapped she is. Even this woman, who was bought and sold, has experienced more freedom than she ever will.

It is in the relationship between Amélie and the slave, whose real name we never learn (Hans calls her “Sahara”), that the story truly blossoms. Sahara was a Korean priestess, raped and kidnapped by Japanese raiders and eventually sold into slavery in Lisbon. She has a very clear-eyed view of men and what she can expect from them, and to Amélie, this at first looks like subservience. But it's not, as later chapters slyly explain, and Sahara is using her position as a way to make a life for herself – and to rescue Amélie from one that holds her back. While it is possible to read a romantic attraction between the two women, what's more important here is the ways in which they come to understand and support each other. Sahara's life has taught her how to subvert men's actions and expectations. That's a lesson that Amélie never got to learn before. Her life hasn't been good or easy, but Sahara has come through it smarter and stronger than before. Amélie looks to the sky, but Sahara looks to herself for the same freedom.

Yudori's feminist historical fiction leaves a lot for us to pull out from the story, which is frankly a draw. We can see Amélie begin to realize that perhaps she's a lesbian, slowly understand what motivates Eva, the servant who accompanied Amélie when she married, and even see that not everyone denigrates Amélie's scientific mind – a miller is only too happy to explain how his windmill works. The art doesn't shy away from showing bodies as they are; Amélie doesn't shave and is drawn with full pubic hair and underarm hair, and her breasts hang without artificial fullness. The art is harsh when it needs to be, but still has an appealing cleanliness of line that enhances the story.

Between Amélie, Eva, Yolente (another servant), and Sahara, Raging Clouds explores what it means to be powerless and to be a woman. Hans' true nature is shown with clearer and clearer eyes as the book goes on, and ultimately, it becomes a story about how women can find their way out of a world that seems desperate to tie them down.