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Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Book Review: Graphic Novels Part 4

For the last couple weeks I have been on the mood to read some graphic novels, so I have accumulated quite a bit of them and I think it's time to do a round up of Graphic Novels and short novels that I have read in the last few months or so, right?  Ok, let's jump right in:

1.  Cloudy With A Change of Destruction (Lois Lane) by Gwenda Bond


This one... I got this Novel from NetGalley and read it last year and never got a change to do a review, but let's remedy this and do one, shall we?  This was such a quick read and I really like it, I wanted more when I was done.  This follow Lois Lane during school, she is in high school during science class and there is a chemistry project that kind of goes out of control and she has to deal with it.  One of her classmates decides to impress his ex girlfriend with an experiment and he brings something to school the next day that is so dangerous that could harm the whole school.  Lois, together with her "internet" friend find out what the experiment and they same the day before people get harmed.  It was an interesting and cute book, I gave it a 4 out of 5 stars.

2.  Saga, Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan


This one?  OMG, there was so much hype about this series that I wasn't sure I wanted to read, but then I decided to just buy one Volume and read it and I fell in love it with.  The story falls a couple who are each from different worlds but have fallen in love and are married and have just give birth to a baby, however the world is not okay with this union.  So, they are on the run because people from all over the universe is trying to find and kill them.  This Graphic Novel is Fantasy and science fiction all together and amazingly done and the art?  Amazing, I love it and of course I gave it 5 stars and cannot wait to read the next volumes.

3. The Other One (5 to 1) by Holly Bodger


I remember just looking up to see if there was a sequel to 5 to 1 and there isn't one yet, but I found this short novel about Surina and of course I had to read it.  It was really short only 32 pages so I was done in like 15 minutes or less but I was happy to be back on that world for that amount of time, we need a sequel Holly.  Okay, back to this novel, this novel follows Surina on the first day of her sister's Tests, and even though she is suppose to be Koyanagar's perfect Poster Girl, she is actually far from it.  She isn't happy on her marriage, she actually hates to have to follow everyone's desires.  Her life is far from perfect, especially after losing the boy that she loved and it was all her fault.  I gave it 4 out of 5 stars, even though I felt bad for her and understood some of the reasons why she felt and did things, I felt like she could be more like her sister a bit instead of complaining so much.

4.  Boxers by Gene Luen Yang


Nothing like reading and learning at the same time, right?  That's how I felt about this Graphic Novel.  China, 1898, foreign missionaries and soldiers are in the countryside bullying and robbing the Chinese peasants.  Little Bao takes measures into his own hands and starts to recruit his own army of Boxers (commoners trained in kung fu who will fight to free China from "foreign devils").

The rebellion is becoming successful, but at what cost?  It is very violent and lots and lots of people are dying, including "secondary devils" which are Chinese citizens that have converted to Christianity.

This was a really interesting and graphic novel, I loved learning about this era in history and the art was amazing, it really captured what the story was about.  I gave this GN 4 out of 5 stars.

5.  Saints by Gene Luen Yang


This is the second and companion novel to Boxers, and the story doesn't technically continue from where it left off right away, it actually tells the story in the prespective of one of the "secondary devils", a girl who converts to Christianity.  And you get to understand why some of the Chinese people converted to Christianity and understand the two sides of the story.  And right at the end it picks up where the first novel ended and we get to see what happens to our main character from the first novel Boxers.  I actually ended up enjoying this one a little more and the art was the same, amazing.  I still ended up giving 4 out of 5 stars, why?  I felt like we didn't get full closure, am I the only one?  But I totally recommend both these novels.

6-11. Locke and Key-Volume 1-6 by Joe Hill

          

Ah, I wasn't sure what to pick and came across this Graphic Novel series, there are only 6 volumes and they are all out already so I picked Volume 1 and went with it.  Volume 1 starts with telling what the story is all about: it tells the story of Keyhouse an unlikely New England mansion, with magic doors that transform all who dare to walk through them.  But it also houses a hate-filled creature that will not stop or rest until it forces open the most dangerous and terrible door of them all.  And the story just picks up from there, from Volume 1-6 we get to know all the characters, the sister and her two brothers, the oldest one and the little one.  I love the little brother, he plays a huge roll throughout the novels, he finds most of the keys and finds out what they do, he is one smart little guy.  The sister, she grieves so much in the first Volume and when she finds a key that can make her not cry anymore she takes advantage of it; but at the end she understands that she can't not ignore life and has to feel all the feelings and go through life like everyone else.  The big brother is what keeps the family together, that's what I felt.  He is always there for everyone and at the end he figures out what to do to fix keyhouse and what to do with all the keys, he was pretty amazing.  The mother is a mess throughout most of the volumes, she drinks herself to sleep most of the time but she eventually puts herself together and helps at the end.  The creature that tries to destroy everybody is creepy and pretty damn amazing at the same time, I wanted to kill him but at the same time high five him, he was smart that's for sure.  He knew all about Keyhouse and the keys and what each one of them did and how to take advantage of people.  But he was cruel, more than cruel, he won't think twice if he had to kill someone, so that was pretty crazy.  The end was pretty intense but it ended nicely.  I totally recommend this Graphic novel series.  Here are my ratings: Vol 1: 4 stars, Vol 2: 4 Stars, Vol 3: 4 Stars, Vol 4: 4 Stars, Vol 5: 5 Stars, Vol 6: 5 Stars.

And that's it for my Graphic Novels reviews, 11 of them this time, I will try to not have that many next time :)

What other Graphic Novels do you recommend?

XOXO,

Nelia

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