This graphic novel is amazing! I remember reading parts of this epic poem back in Religion 101 in University and really falling in love with the characters and the story. Essentially, this is illustrated, layman's guide to one part of the tale. The illustrations are amazing, and beautiful and also adorable! Please do a Google Image search - you won't be disappointed! I have started reading it to Lucas, and he loves it just as much as I do. There is adventure, love, brotherly devotion, gods, and a ten headed demon!
Highly recommended!
As for the next one...sigh... I am SO SICK AND TIRED of the following story line: average girl gets thrown into a strange and unique world/chain of events. And there is a boy (urgh...) who is really annoying and not at all interesting or attractive, or is he? And she is just so out of her element that she requires his help, even though she doesn't want his help and is just so frustrated when he helps her in his condescending, handsome, boyish manner...etc.
The protagonist of this book has no agency. Stuff happens to her, and she just watches it instead of participating. And when something strange, or scary happens she just panics and complains. Woe is me, and all that jazz. She is curious when it is safe to be, but when it might actually help her she just fumes. Her right hand lady is more exciting, and her crazy aunt. And her cousin that has only made an appearance once and is alluded to often so at least she's going to play a bigger role as the books continue.
Gywneth is part of a kind of secret time travel club, and you only get to enter it if you have the gene for it. And she didn't think she would have the gene for it, as her cousin has been groomed for the role since she was born. She is wholly unprepared for this new life! (Gosh just typing this is making me roll my eyes). And girls are allowed to be in the club, but not actually make any decisions about it or run it or anything. Cause girls are stupid. And yes I understand the author is possibly trying to make a social comment about that, but she does a piss-poor job of it. More "woe is me".
I had high hopes for this series - time travel and all - but I have been sorely disappointed by book one and don't think I will search out the remainder. Oh look, it was made into a movie. Of course it was...in German?! That might actually be worth watching ;)
Another amazing graphic novel! Very "Canadian" without beating you over the head with hockey references. Although there are some of those in here! This volume includes three separate but connected stories about a group of individuals living in Essex county at various times in the past. It's a beautiful commentary on life in a small community where everyone knows each other - or thinks they know each other. And how ghosts of your past are always with you, haunting or just hanging around. It felt very special and I could feel the connections between the characters form and grow, and then get ripped away or change - for better or worse - even with so few words, as befits a graphic novel of this kind. I lent it to BFF because this is definitely the kind of book that he can get behind. Highly recommended.
(I hate formatting blog posts.....)
In closing, always and forever, a little reminder:
I LOVE THE LIBRARY
I LOVE EPL's HOLDS SYSTEM
I LOVE GRAPHIC NOVELS
Did you think Ruby Red was worse than Divergent, though? I didn't find Tris to have much more agency than Gwendolyn, but I'd have to read them both again with that lens...
ReplyDeleteOkay...stupid blogger deleted my own comment. Anyhoo!
ReplyDeleteAgreed! That is an apt comparison! I did like the action in Divergent better, and it left me guessing in the lame "plot twist" for a little longer than Ruby Red. Saw through that one right away. Perhaps I am just moving beyond YA stuff. I'll have to find some more adult dystopic stuff!
I know--I declared to Mark (my EPL book pimp) "NO MORE YA DYSTOPIAN FICTION" because I'm so, so tired of the exact same tropes coming up in every book. Have you read the Wool trilogy (by Hugh Howey)? I'm not sure if you'd like it any better--it's not explicitly YA but it has a similar themes to those YA ones. The difference is that the heroine is pretty kick-ass, IIRC. As with basically all of these trilogies, the first book held my attention much more than the other two.
ReplyDeleteOoh, I also read the Uglies series (it's YA). You might want to try the first book, but I think you might want to give that one a wide berth too if you haven't already read it. Same blinkin' story, same young girl thrust into a bizarre situation. Ha. Yup, I definitely need to read more grown up stuff too. But where to begin? I read Outlander. Didn't like it. Anyways. I'll stop now--this isn't *my* blog, afterall. ;)
ReplyDeleteI didn't like Outlander either!!! I like Margaret Atwood stuff. Her Oryx and Crake series was quite good (in terms of more modern stuff...never could get my head around the Edible Woman). Also James Howard Kunstler has a couple of good ones, and he writes non-fiction too in the same vein, so he actually knows what he's talking about! And I like Cormac McCarthy, but I also hate him, y'know...anyhoo...
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