Hello everyone and welcome to the blog! Today I have another book down for my required 24 out of the year, and this one was an interesting read! A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness For this book, I went ahead and did my first ever video review of both book […]
Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog! As I mentioned in my goals for 2019 post, I want to finish at least 1 novel every month. I am already on the right track with this goal by finishing my first book of the […]
Hello again everyone! Now that we are well into the summer season, I thought it would be fun to share with you 4 of my favorite graphic novels that I have read for the month of July (so far!). Being both a lover of art and storytelling, graphic novels are definitely my happy medium that combines both worlds! Now let’s get into the novels…Spoiler free I promise! 😉
I would definitely call this my wildcard for July. I normally dislike westerns, but I picked up this book for my local Graphic Novel club, and I was pleasantly surprised. The art is clean and colorful, but the story is intense and captivating. The story centers on three main characters; Stingly a geologist, Oscar a photographer, and Milton the assistant on the expedition. They are surveying the land for future development, but they quickly see that the land already has its own civilization. Needless to say a lot goes down, and these characters have a lot of secrets, things they are running from, and other agendas throughout the story.
I found both the art and story really great, and this is a novel I definitely want to own for my personal collection. The underlining theme of this book seems to be this line between “civilized” and “animal” nature. I think this story’s message is that there really is no boundary between these two, and we are all animals at our core, and that there is nothing necessarily wrong with that. It is only when certain characters try to deny this that things turn ugly. I believe that this juxtaposition is made clear by the three main characters; Oscar and Milton being the animal representation and Stingly being the “civilized” one. I also thought the strange paranormal/supernatural elements were really fun and weren’t overdone. It really adds to the story.
If you would like to learn more about the authors, then check out theses links!
https://frederikpeeters.tumblr.com/
http://www.loohuiphang.com/?page_id=16
On a lighter note, I read Taproot—an adorable story about a gardener who can see ghosts and one of the said ghosts he grows closer to, Blue. Hamal and Blue are the main characters of this story and it focuses on their relationship with each other as a human and ghost. There is a lurking darkness that is coming for the local spirits in the area, which ultimately leads to Blue having to make a difficult decision to protect Hamal. There is also a fabulous extra story at the end that I can definitely see moving this story forward as a future series.
None of the novels in this list have bad art of course; they are all very unique to each author and story. Reading Taproot you can definitely feel its roots as a webcomic which is really fun to know. Its so cool to see an author that started online having a physical, published book. This is also just such a sweet and heartwarming story, and I highly recommend it if you are also looking for a good LGBT novel. I will say that I think one of the highlights of this novel is most certainly that extra story we get after the main events happen. I would honestly love to see more!
If you would like to learn more about the author, then check out this link!
Jumping back into a more dark and adult series–I devoured the House of Women. It is such a unique read and with an equally intriguing art style, which I probably would have never gone near a few years back when I had limited tastes. The story centers on Sarai and her fellow women emissaries who are sent to a foreign, alien planet to “civilize” the local population. Of course this expedition does not go according to plan when various forms of conflict arise. It then becomes a question if whether the real danger is found outside of the women’s sanctuary or from within.
First and foremost, I have to mention the stunning cover of this novel. The gold detail is so eye-catching and the bold cover design really makes this just a gorgeous book to have on your bookshelf. The art itself just pleases the printmaker in me. Purely black and white and bold design, you could probably take any panel from this story and turn it into a nice woodblock print. It’s all about pattern and composition, and this works so well for the story. The story is really mysterious with suspense and a little bit of horror, which makes it a really fun read. It was a very interesting world and I would happily read more of it and stories from this author.
If you would like to learn more about the author, then check out this link!
I was so happy to finally have read this one! I am familiar with some of Jen Wang’s other stories which I enjoyed quite a lot, so I was pretty hopeful about this one. The Prince and the Dressmaker follows the story of Frances, a young seamstress with big dreams and Sebastian, a prince with a secret…he likes to wear dresses. With the help of Frances, these two create Sebastian’s fashionable persona Lady Crystallia and take Paris by storm! But things don’t go as planned when Lady Crystallia becomes the most popular fashion icon in the city, and everyone wants to know who is creating her fabulous clothes.
This was another really sweet and heartwarming story, which is all about embracing who you truly are. Frances and Sebastian are just too adorable and seeing the ups and downs of their friendship was lovely. I love the Cinderella aspects of this story, but it was so refreshing that it wasn’t a carbon copy. The art is just as equally cute and all the clothes designs that Frances creates are really fun. I also really appreciated the little behind the scenes moment Jen Wang includes the end of the novel. She goes through the main steps of her process and reveals that she had originally pictured Frances and Sebastian as adults, but ultimately made them in their teens to fit the story. I think it’s really great to know these little facts.
If you would like to learn more about the author, then check out this link!
So that’s 4 of my favorite graphic novels for July (so far)! I hope you enjoyed learning about these novels, and I hope that some of you give them a read for yourself!
Have you read these novels? What did you think? Which novels would you like to see me talk about next?