Graphic Novel Review: "Something New: Tales from a Makeshift Bride" by Lucy Knisley

This was not my favorite Lucy Knisley. I love her food and travel based offerings the most, but this book is still valuable and if you have some engaged friends I would recommend you giving this to them!

The story details Lucy's relationship with her now husband, how they planned their wedding long distance, and their actual wedding day. The food sounded great, surprise surprise! 

Lucy is shocked by the mass commercialization of weddings and how there are so many things that you are "supposed" to do. It was definetly something I noticed when I was planning my wedding, but like Lucy I got to a point where it's like "Uh, no if it's not something you want to do you don't have to do it". Though Lucy went a little farther than me. Though looking back I would have made some changes, but really I have no regrets.

Another thing that Lucy brings up is her bisexuality. What happens to that part of her once she gets married (to a man)? Is it something that she stops being? Is it something that lies dormant in her waiting for years down the line to rear it's head and cause problems? It was something that she struggled with, and I think a lot of people do. Not necessarily the bisexuality part, but the "hey I'm yoking myself to this person forever and what does that mean for me as a person?"

There's stress, barn building, poutine, and all of the rest of the wedding details made better by Lucy's cute sketches and laid back style. When it's all said and done you feel kind of exhausted, but in a good way! 

My main critique of this book is that there weren't any of her manatee sketches which I love :)

Graphic Novel Review: "Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Naratives from Black History" by Joel Christian Gill

When I was looking for my next graphic novel to review on goodreads the big ol' font on this cover caught my eye, along with it's unusual name. What does fruit have to do with black history? And then I saw that the title comes from an anti-racism song by Billie Holiday that talks about how black victims of lynching look like strange fruit hanging from trees. Oh....so, that's awful to think about. I've linked the song below, also Billie has skills in case you haven't heard her before. Worth a listen on multiple levels!




So, this book talks about 9 stories that you probably haven't heard before. Myself I had heard of two of these men. I''d heard of Henry "Box" Brown from an episode of The Memory Palace - a favorite podcast of mine, and I'd heard of Bass Reeves from an episode of Drunk History. A tv show with a funny premise, but that I've actually learned a lot from. Reading this book you will hear about a chess champion, a cyclist, the nation's first integrated school and more!

I have only 2 gripes, and they are small. One, a lot of times the font is hard to read. It's either teeny tiny or very scripty so maybe not a good book to read on a moving vehicle or in the dark. My other gripe is that they left a lot out of the Box Brown episode. They detail very well his escape from slavery in a small, mailed box but they tell you less about what happens afterward. I feel like they also imply that he escaped and bought his wife and 3 children who were still in slavery as soon as he could but he actually went on a speaking tour and married a white woman in Great Britain and started a new family......I'm sure it comes down to a) limited pages to devote to each story and b) I think the focus is supposed to be on the daring escape (though with things like that I'm always more interested in how you cope AFTER something like that).

A good read, I learned a lot and I will keep my eyes peeled for more in the series.

All Lady July - Graphic Novel Review: "Raven Girl" by Audrey Niffenegger

Are you looking for a graphic novel with kind of bizarre illustrations and cross species families accompanied by poetry like words? Then, this might be the graphic novel for you. 

Honestly I thought it was a little bizarre and strange but liked the sounds of the words. I mean, if you're going to have a person fall in love with a raven and have a hybrid baby together it has to sound pretty right?

Favorite sentence:
"He felt as one does when dreaming about familiar houses with sudden strange rooms discovered in unlikely places".

And the new word that I learned: perfidiousness

Which means:  deliberately faithless; treacherous; deceitful

Thanks Dictionary.com!

 Honestly I don't have a whole lot to say about this one so I guess we will just leave it there. (I really just needed to feel my "graphic novel" quota for the month shrug.

 

Graphic Novel Review: "Miss Marvel: Vol. 1 - No Normal" by G. Willow Wilson

Am I incredibly late to the game on this graphic novel? Yes, yes I am. To be honest, I put off reading this one because I was trying to stick with stand alone graphic novels for my once a month graphic novel reviews. However, this one was such a ground breaker I thought I'd bend the rules to accommodate this special young lady.

Kamala is a typical teenage girl in so many ways. Butting heads with parents about things like curfew, liking comic books, going to parties (where there will be boys!!) and tiffs with friends. But the added wrinkle is that she is Muslim and sometimes that makes her feel very isolated. One night when she sneaks out of the house to do what "normal" teenagers do she has an odd encounter with some fog and her life changes forever....Great themes in this book: responsibility, family, justice and all sorts of weighty things. 


In all honesty I don't think that I will continue reading this series. It's not a knock on this series because the fact that it even exists gives me hope for humanity. It's just that I don't really do the superhero vein of the graphic novels. However, every time there is a big cheer coming up from the collective comic book world when a new volume comes out, I will be joining in. And frankly, how can you NOT cheer when the world finally gives people a character that you can cosplay and not get a full body wax and eat nothing but celery and pepto bismol to achieve it. Praise hands emoji.




Click here to be taken to Panels post on Ms Marvel cosplay!

Mini Graphic Novel Review: "Displacment: A Travelogue" by Lucy Knisley

You guys, I'm not going to lie to you - I was stressed through almost all of this read. And that's not really a usual thing with Lucy's graphic novels and me.

So Lucy's grandparents have booked themselves a cruise with their retirement/nursing home. Lucy's whole family thinks this is a bad idea because her grandparents are both becoming senile and get confused easily. And the boat is a standard ocean cruise boat, which is to say that it's HUGE. Lucy volunteers to go with her grandparents and to make sure that they stay safe and don't get lose.

Lucy is shocked at "how far gone" here grandparents are mentally. Her grandfather defecates in his pants almost every day. Sometimes they forget who she is. They can't find their room. She becomes highly stressed and feels like she can't leave them alone for 10 minutes or else she will never find them again. (She is not wrong). But as she cruises with her grandparents she re-reads her grandpa's WWII era memoir and it helps give her perspective on who her grandparents used to be and still are.


So this isn't really a book about a cruise. It's a book about mortality, and relationships and making sure we spend time with our loved ones.

Graphic Novel Review: "Through the Woods" by Emily Carroll

Tip of the hat to Reno at Falling Letters for this recommendation. She also was the one who told me that you can sort your Goodreads TBR shelf by page number, so she's basically my hero. I took her up on her recommendation and now it's sitting on your screen as the graphic novel review of March!


This graphic novel is actually a collection of short stories (and an intro and conclusion), all of them involving the woods. Because as they say in the graphic novel, several times, strange things come from the woods....

I think that the very first story was my favorite. It grabbed me right from the first panel and I SOL'd (shrieked out loud) at the last sentence.

Wild animals, mysterious circumstances in the woods, curious family members, and weird things that live behind someone's eyes...

The art was lovely and if you're worried about gore that won't be a problem...in most situations. Though a few might get you.

I thought that the strongest stories were towards the beginning and got a little bit weaker towards the end. However, each story was unique, creepy and fit together in a great way. If you're looking for a slim volume to disturb your sleep I highly reccomend this book. 4 out of 5 stars!

Graphic Novel Book Review: "Boxers" and "Saints" by Gene Luen Yang

I was going to originally review this GNs back to back months for my graphic novels pick,but they really are best understood together, I think. So here they are!

The books take one series of events and take two different view points on it. In 1898, in China the Boxer Rebellion started. Some of the Chinese were angry that there were foreigners and missionaries in their country, trying to win converts to Christianity and bringing change to the area (not in always a good way).

In "Boxers", Bao sees a foreign devil (a Catholic priest) smash one of his villages favorite gods. The village rumbles with talk about how this is happening all over the place and just who do these devils think they are?! A mysterious man comes to Bao's village and trains some of the men to fight to defend themselves. He teaches Bao in secret. Soon they become/join "The Brothers of the Harmonious Fist" to go through the Chinese countryside purging it of Christians and foreigners. There's even a "squadron" of all women who eventually start doing the same thing. Then there's a big face off in Peking...

In "Saints", our story centers around a girl named Four. She's the unwanted fourth daughter in a family so they don't bother to name her. One day when she is in the woods she sees this mysterious person who looks like they are made out of gold. She goes to the local Catholic priest to ask about it, and soon they kind of bond. As you might guess, she gets more harassment than love at home, so she starts spending some time with a man and woman who are Christians. At first she goes because they give her snacks, but eventually they become like a family to her. She eventually becomes a Christian and is baptized, taking the name Vibiana. The person who appears to her in the woods is Joan of Arc, and sometimes she talks to Vibiana. The two both had to face threats to their nation, but Vibiana is conflicted because, as a Christian, she is technically on the side of the invaders. Vibiana helps orphans and Christians flee to what they think will be the relative safety of Peking....


I'm not doing a great job of reviewing these. This is just the plot basically, but there are so many other things that go into both of these books. Chinese gods, talking kind of evil raccoon, interesting Chinese cultural points... I have to say that I enjoyed Saints the most, but Boxers is important because of the set up. I liked how Bao and Vibiana both got to tell their sides of the story before their stories intertwine almost alllll the way at the end. And the Boxer Rebellion was brutal and scary and incredibly violent, so my heart is with the Christian missionaries though I'm sure the Chinese had some valid complaints. I thought the story telling was amazing and I'd love to shove these books in everyone's hands. 4 out of 5 stars!

Graphic Novel Review: "The Bad Doctor - The Troubled Life and Times of Dr Iwan James" by Ian Williams

A short review of a graphic novel today.

Everyone be surprised, all of the illustrations are just black and white and very unflashy, just how I like them.

Dr James is a general practitioner in Wales. He sees all variety of things and people come through his door, and like I imagine it does to all doctors, sometimes he absorbs other people's problems and it stresses him out. His marriage is fine (but that's about it) and he finds joy on his long cycling trips through the country with his buddy.

However, Dr Williams has had a certain medical condition that has weighed on him immensely since he was a very little boy. And Im not going to tell you what it is because that would be a spoiler. But I will say that it's stressful and it can effect what kind of a doctor he is at times. And here's a nonspoiler spoiler for you, he isn't a bad doctor.

I like this graphic novel because it's just about a bunch of every day humans with every day struggles and was reflective of a lot of people's lives. 3 out of 5 stars!

Graphic Novel Review: "Pyongyang: A Journey into North Korea" by Guy Delisle

 It's graphic novel review time!

So, North Korea. I think that if we knew one half of the things that are happening in North Korea we would be terrified. The information that trickles out already is horrible. Anyway, this graphic novel is the story of our author, a French cartoonist/illustrator who has the oppurtonity to go to North Korea for a short time and work on some of their films. (There's a whole interesting thing about how North Korea has this whole film industry that I didn't really expect it to have.)

His hotel room has power for less than half the time. All the foreigners are put on one floor of the hotel. He's never without a "guide" (aka state sponsored babysitter). He sees people "volunteering" to toil in fields or fix roads on the days that they aren't at their actual jobs.  He tries to find out if his handlers truly believe that they live in the best country in the world and that the rest of the world quakes in fear at North Korea's name; or if they look so convinced so they and their families don't disappear in the middle of the night.

(Did you know that during a famine that killed at least (that we know of) 1 million North Koreans,North Korea was the biggest importer of Hennessy? It's not a strong enough word, but when I was reading this book and thinking about the Kims (Dad and Junior) I kept thinking - "What douches. For real. Kings of the Douches.)

One thing that Guy mentioned really stuck with me. He said he never saw one handicapped person the whole time he was in North Korea. He was there for at least a month. Can you imagine going for a month without seeing a person with any kind of handicap or disability? And you know it's not because, like, North Korea has cured all of these terrible diseases, or figured out how to unparalyze people, or whatever and isn't sharing it with the world. That gave me goosebumpy chills. It still is, if I'm honest.


This was such an interesting read. I learned so much and was made even more curious about what happens over there that we don't know. I also liked the approachable and not weird drawing style, as per the usual.
4 stars out of 5!

 

Graphic Novel review: "Anya's Ghost" by Vera Brosgol

Another Goodreads recommendation gone right today!

Anya is an average high school student in many ways. She struggles with grades, friends, and family drama. She is Russian, but has worked hard to lose her accent and speak English well so that kids won’t pick on her like they did when she was small.

On her way home from school one day she falls down a hidden well and finds herself in the company of a skeleton…and it’s ghost. Anya passes a strange night down in the well, but is rescued and tries to forget the whole experience. But it isn’t quite that easy because something or someone has followed her home… At first it seems like a good thing, and surprisingly beneficial to her social life. However it doesn’t take long for things to take a turn. Anya finds herself having to rely on a person that she constantly rebuffs to help her with her unusual problem before it gets dangerous.

I liked this book because it kind of took a turn in a way that I wasn’t expected. I appreciate when a book surprises me, because I feel like so often the twists and turns are at least a little bit predictable. I like the clean lines and simple pictures. (I think I must be scarred from starting with Gaiman’s Sandman series. They were good but just so much going on; I’ve swung completely the other way now.) 3.5 stars out of 5!

 

Graphic Novel Review: "Andre the Giant: Life and Legend" by Box Brown

So I realized that I can't just review Lucy Knisley graphic novels each time so this is me branching out :)

I know Andre the Giant from "The Princess Bride", because I love that movie. I knew peripherally that he was a wrestler but I never was into wrestling (though I do ocassionally tune into that WWE Divas show. Mostly because it's totally ridiculous and Josh and I  can't believe what an a-hole John Cena is.) At any rate let's talk about Andre.

Andre grew up in France. By 12 years old he was too big to fit on the school bus, and a certain super famous person gave him rides to school in the bed of his pick up. He started wrestling in France but soon got discovered and became super famous in Japan. ( Airplane travel, you ask? Yes, he took up two seats. No, he could not fit in the bathroom...which lead to some uncomfortable solutions but what can you do). When he was in Japan, he was finally diagnosed by a doctor with acromegaly ('giantism'). He was told that he would continue to grow, he would have heart problems, joint pain and probably not live to see 40. (He actually lived to see 46).

He wrestled in the United States and became a big attraction. Though sometimes they had trouble finding opponents for him because you put even a big guy up against Andre and it's still pretty obvious who had the upper hand. The doctors were right though, he did have pain and and he did have to have surgeries. But he recovered in the tranquility of his beloved farm in North Carolina.

Was Andre perfect? No. He drank a lot. Was he a jerk sometimes? Yes. Did he put up with a TON of crap from other people? Heck to the yes. The staring and the comments that people would make, and people randomly trying to start fights with him would make anyone cranky. Also I liked that they didn't shy away from the "is wrestling fake?" question in the book. They made it pretty clear that he and Hulk Hogan's big match in Detroit was orchestrated for Andre to "pass the torch" on to Hulk. That fight is on youtube by the way, and after reading the book and kind of knowing what to look for, it was entertaining. (Like Andre slamming his own head down to make Hulk look better.) I bet some of the pre-fight interviews are fun to watch. Though it's hard to think of him besides anyone other than Fezzik, the best member of the brute squad.

Here's a story from Wikipedia I thought was great:
Whenever André treated someone to a meal in a restaurant he would pay, but he would also insist on paying when he was a guest. After one meal, Arnold Schwarzenegger had quietly moved to the cashier to pay before André could, but then found himself being physically lifted, carried from his table, and deposited on top of his car by André and Wilt Chamberlain.^[83]

I think this kind of graphic novel is my niche. Simple, clean line, biographies of people I know nothing about. I'll always love food and travel ones of course, but variety is good. I give this a solid 3.5 stars.

Graphic Novel review: "Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo and Me" by Ellen Forney

Ellen is one of those people, who I suspect, was always the life of the party. A talker, hypersexual, creative on the go type of person. She's a cartoonist (kind of obvious, I suppose) and loves drama and theater. One summer she starts to feel pretty consistently and begins to see a therapist. After not many sessions the therapist begins to suspect Ellen might have a personality disorder (manic episodes, not much sleep or appetite, the hypersexuality, family history, among other things). When they open up the DSM-IV and Ellen reads the symptoms she sees herself outlined on the page.



What follows is a story of Ellen's struggle to find the right balance of medications, her own struggle with her creativity and motivation, interesting stories about her friends and family (one with a really sweet Greek name) and more. She also looks to different "tortured" artists to see how their mental illnesses affected them and their work.



I think two of her questions she asks herself were pretty profound, and must have been scary to contemplate:

-I thought this was just my fun, zany personality; but you're telling me these are all symptoms of a disease?

- If I take meds to prevent my mood swings, am I choosing to be less creative?



This was not my favorite graphic novel, but I really appreciate that she laid everything bare. Her struggles not just with medication and side effects, but what the disease meant for her as a person as an artist. I also appreciated the sobering statistics that she included, foremost the pages where she outlined artists who had attempted or had committed suicide. It was a depressingly a lot of people. 3 stars out of 5! (The book does contain a fair amount of female cartoon nudity...just in case you were planning on reading this with a small child or your grandparents or something)

Graphic Novel review: "French Milk" by Lucy Knisley

You may have noticed that this is Lucy's second showing on the blog, specifically in my efforts to read more graphic novels. The first one, Relish, can be found here.If you want to find out more about Lucy Knisley and how much Andi From Estella's Revenge loves her, go here.

So Lucy, who is about to graduate college, and her mom, who is about to turn 50, head to Paris for a month. Lucy is having some massive anxiety about her upcoming life milestones: becoming an adult, finding a job and really having to make her own way in the world. Sometimes that gets the better of her in Paris, and she gets really down and emotional (which who can blame her? That jump from college student to adult is a panicky not nice feeling for anyone...unless you have a trust fund or something). The only silver lining about her feeling upset was that sometimes she would draw manatees to feel better, and I do love my manatees.

Lucy and her mom spend their days in Paris dodging rain drops (super rainy in Paris in winter) and exploring. They find several art museums, galleries, churches, comic books stores, cemeteries and restaurants to explore. There's much talk about delicious sounding breads products that made me really hungry as I was reading! Then there was talk about foie gras and veal which made me less hungry. She even had a foie gras flavored cookie which she admitted didn't taste so good. (That got me thinking, like would I ever try a cheeseburger flavored cookie? No. So good for Lucy for being an adventurous eater!)

It's a graphic novel, so obviously all the stories are accompanied by these nice, uncomplicated drawings. Her work is just really approachable and open and I love that. It also has photographs from their time there too. So a universal theme about anxiety at life changes, a beautiful French setting, good drawings. An all around good read for me! 3.5 out of 5 stars! It also reminded me that I need to make good journal entries on my next travels, maybe I can get Lucy to draw them for me!

Graphic Novel Review - "American Born Chinese" by Gene Luen Yang

It wouldn't really be fair to call this one novel, because it's really 3 separate stories that all kind of tie together at the end.

Story 1: Timmy starts as a third grader at a new school. His parents are both Chinese, and immigrated to America but he was born in the States. He struggles as kids tease him about his name and if he eats dog or not. He kind of reluctantly becomes friends with the one other asian kid in his class who is also new. We follow him as he gets older and struggles with the normal teenage things like liking girls and wanting to fit in.

Story 2: Danny is just trying to be an all american teenage but than his cousin comes to visit. His cousin Chin-Kee is every bad chinese stereotype. Buck teeth, the pyramid shaped bamboo hat, the problem with some word pronunciation ("brockoree" instead of broccoli). He wreaks havoc on Danny's tentative social life, and he starts to ruin everything for Danny, so he says.

Story 3: The Monkey King is (wait for it) king of the monkeys. He studies a lot and has learned to many things making him a powerful king. Than he gets slighted by other gods and goddesses and kings and gets maaaaad. It turns him into a power hungry jerk that "forgets where he came from".

I'm kind of ambivalent about this book. It was fine. I liked the style of the art. I wasn't really all about the 3 story and then tying it together. I'm just very "meh" about it. The best part is the art. I guess a 2.5 out of 5?

Graphic Novel Review - "V for Vendetta" by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, with bonus movie talk!

I've been not great about keeping up with my "1 graphic novel a month" resolution" but I knew that one of them would be this one.  Basically because I really liked the movie, opposite world I guess; movie than book for me!

Here's the basics: England is possibly one of the only countries left after a worldwide nuclear war took out several countries around the world. It's not run by an incredibly scary dictatorship that controls and monitors absolutely everything. People who are enemies of the state/party are swept up into concentration camps where predictably terrible things happen. So suddenly anyone who is gay, black, outspoken against the government, threatening in any way to the "peace" that's been accomplished has disappeared. This leaves a lot of orphans, and one of them is Evey, one of our main characters. She decides that she needs to take to prostitution to survive, but on the night she decides to start she runs into a scary situation where she is saved by a masked man.

This masked man takes her to his subterranean lair that is filled with wonderful, illegal things; like art and music and movies. He explains that he is "V" and that the explosion of a nearby government building was him, he's out to fix England and force her people to make a change.

So throughout the story we hear how the government reacts to "V" and his little anarchy fueled mischief, why he is the way he is, and more. I was surprised how closely the movie followed the novel, it hit all the same major points, even if sometimes it took some different paths to get there. There was a lot more side action about wives of high ranking officials in the novel who were cut out of the movie, which I think is fine. They weren't super crucial.I thought it was interesting that parts of the branches of government were named after body parts, like the surveillance team who spies on everyone was "Ears"; which makes sense. And the policemen who almost kill Evey are "finger men".

Movie talk: I love the casting in the movie, especially Hugo Weaving. That's not really fair because I love Hugo Weaving in general so I might be a little biased. Not everything is followed from the novel to a T (but when is it ever?) but I think that it's close enough that a lot of people won't be that angry!

If you are looking for a classic graphic novel to read I highly recommend this one. It's pretty straightforward, the text is clear to read and it's kind of a familiar story. 3.5 out of 5 stars!

GN review: "The Undertaking of Lily Chen" by Danica Novgorodoff

In my continued effort to read more graphic novels I bring you today's review. It's going to be a short one because it's not a 1000 pager by any means.

Wei is the second son in a Chinese family. Tragedy strikes his older brother and he is burdened with a strange task, finding him a corpse bride.

He only as a short time frame to get find one, so he immediately sets out towards the countryside. He has to tread carefully because there are people looking for him from his job, and because the corpse bride concept is an old one and is shunned in many places.

On his journey he finds Lily. Lily is beautiful but she's also impulsive, loud, not very careful and sometimes gets him in trouble.Sometimes meaning always. And though he's falling in love with her he knows he has to kill her.

I thought this was a fun read. Fast, interesting, and a bit of a love story! 3.5 out of 5 stars!

Also, do I love this cover? Yes, yes I do.

Graphic Novel Review: "Relish: My Life in the Kitchen" by Lucy Knisley

Relish was exactly what I needed and didn't even know I needed it . My experience with graphic novels to this point basically dealt with some combination of " violence, death, flawed superheroes or masked vigilantes, or really strange illustrations that were borderline too creepy a lot of the time" (I'm looking at you Neil's Sandmans!). So even though I knew the content matter of this graphic novel I was basically waiting for the other )weird/violent/scary) shoe to drop and it never did. Turns out this is just a funny, informative, relaxing read!

It's the story of Lucy, growing up in New York City with super foodie parents. Food was at the center of nearly everything that they did. Lucy tried more exotic, high brow food by the age of 8 than I have at 29. (But it''s okay, because she knows there is a time and place for hot, salty, golden McDonald's French fries....*pauses to wipe drool off keyboard and continues*)

After her parents split up she moves with her mom to a farm not terribly far outside of New York City. There they grow vegetables and raise chickens. (Though there is some initial problems with too many roosters in the hen house, as the saying goes...) Lucy's mom starts a catering business that caters super fancy parties and even a celebrity photo shoot.

Lucy misses the hustle and bustle of a city so she ends up going to art school in Chicago. Even though food is still a big part of her life.

There is more to this GN than just Lucy's story. There's also recipes, many of which look surprisingly uncomplicated and delicious. One is for her oft made, crafted to perfection chocolate chip cookies. There's also a (surprisingly interesting) cheese cheat sheet!

I'm in no way a high class foodie but I do love to eat and I think it's interesting the way that food brings people together. It's really all about the relationship between food and people in a pretentious funny way. The illustration are fun and casual too! 3.5 out of 5 stars!

Roommate Jen- You'll be getting this for a birthday present at some point in our lives. That's your warning! :)

Graphic Novel Review: "Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie, a Tale of Love and Fallout" by Lauren Redniss and last day to enter the giveaway!

(Everyone, don't forget to enter the giveaway before midnight tonight! Winner will be announced on the 15th! Thank you to everyone who has entered so far, the response has been great!)

Are you ready to have the "Radioactive" song stuck in your head for the rest of the day? Because thats a real possibility.

First things first, part of the cover glows in the dark! Which is fun, though puzzling when you see it when you are stumbling out to the kitchen for a glass of water and see something glowing in the living room. So, that's my PSA about that.

This is basically a biography of Marie that is interspersed with shorter stories about radiation and it's affect on history (the 7 Mile Island disaster, the Chernobyl disaster, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.) I'm not going to recount the whole thing but it includes: heartbreak, working your butt off to get what you want, love,a horrifyingly public accident resulting in death, all kinds of scientific discoveries and the Nazis (because those a-holes ruin everything).

The most horrifying part of this story is hearing the details of Marie's health declining due to her exposure to radiation. At one point she kept a vial of it in her apron pocket, and she and Pierre would keep a vial of it near their bed. It was almost 24 hour exposure. When I read that I was like "Marie noooooooooooooooooo!". It's kind of amazing she lived as long as she did.

I think my favorite part of the story is that Marie named polonium after her beloved homeland of Poland. She wanted to bring recognition to her native land and was a little bit sad that the discovery of radiation overshadowed polonium for that reason. So in the middle of the GN they stop and devote  two pages to all the wonderful things and people who come from Poland: Chopin, Copernicus, all kinds of other achievements and even flowers that are native to Poland. I think she would have loved the Poland shout out.

(If you have more interest in Chernobyl I highly recommend the book "All that is Solid Melts into Air" by Darragh McKeon.)

A few complaints. A lot of the time the text was hard to read. It would be like blue text on a blue background. I felt like an old person because I had to hold the thing under a lamp to read it sometimes. Also the pictures were not what I had expected at all, like I kind of feel like the pictures didn't add to the story. They were a little too abstract for my taste but maybe you will think they are awesome!

Overall I thought this was so interesting and I learned a lot, though there were definitely some sad bits! A high 3 out of 5 stars!

Graphic Novel Review: "Harlem Hellfighters" by Max Brooks and Illustrated by Caanan White

I still need to finish the book and write a review for thursdays post so this is going to be a short review! (It's also my Banned Books Week review...)

This was a great graphic novel. I hadn't heard about these brave men, the 369th Infantry before. They were a group of African American and African Puerto Ricans who volunteered to fight in World War I. They were a very diverse group; from the well educated and refined to men who hadn't ever spent any time in school and everything in between. The problems they encountered started almost immediately. One problem was that they weren't given any actual weapons to train with, just broomsticks and the like. (How good does that make your aim? Not good). They didn't receive a loft of training with weapons because the higher ups just intended to use them for manual labor, not for fighting. Also when they were in different cities for training the racism that they encountered from the locals was often incredibly violent. Despite all of this they went to Europe.

They were to fight with the French and not the USA because of race hostility. They spent more time in combat than any other American unit. So these men blew all the expectations of them out of the water.

Also it's written by Max Brooks who wrote World War Z. So Max has some range. And his dad is Mel Brooks, who is awesome. (Not related to anything, just a fact).

Sorry for such a short review, it deserves better.If you have any interest in race relations, World War I, or just like good illustrations I recommend it! 3 out of 5 stars!

Book Review: "Red Son" by Mark Millar, Dave Johnson, and Killian Plunkett

Who is the most dyed in the wool, patriotic, all American that you can think of? George Washington? Patton? Chuck Norris? Let me offer a suggestion, what about Superman? (I know I set you guys up for failure on that one since technically he's not real and technically he's a space alien but the point still stands). For being an alien and not real, Superman is an iconic American. But what if he wasn't?

DUM DUM DUM

In  the graphic novel "Red Son" the Superman legend is turned on it's head. Superman landed in Ukraine instead of the United States and when he grows up he goes to Moscow to be Stalin's right hand man. Though he is Papa Stalin's best boy Superman tries to always do what he feels is best and is necessary, not just what is according to Party lines. (Like, he saves Americans when they need saving. Even though they are capitalist monsters).

In America, Lex Luthor is a mad science genius whose lady love is Lois Lane.The CIA hires him to find a way to destroy this Soviet threat. He makes several different monsters/super hero type things to go up against Superman but it's all for naught.Beating Superman becomes his obsession into which he pours all of his energy and pretty much abandons Lois, who is still a reporter at the Daily Planet.

Another of Superman's enemies is Batmankoff, who is a bomb happy anarchist. (He wears one of those fuzzy ear flap hats over his Batman mask and bat ear thing and it's Adorable even though I don't think that it's supposed to be.) Another familiar face is Wonder Woman. She's a princess from some idyllic paradise that has no need for men (...) and she's Superman's little comrade in crime and she harbors a long standing crush on Superman that even with all of his superpowers he still is too blind to see. (He still is a man after all).

There's huge battles, unrequited love, betrayals, KGB, America in turmoil, and a twist ending. Kind of everything you want in an action packed story, right?

I am a newbie to the graphic novel genre, and am pretty unfamiliar with the Superman canon but I really enjoyed this little tale, I give it 3 and a half stars out of 5. I have always been interested in Russia's turbulent history, especially during it's time in Communism's stranglehold which I think helped. I really wish they would have called him Supercomrade though.I liked the artwork. It was all very much in the style of Russian propaganda of the past, which kept with the continuity of the idea and the overall feel of the story.

Tip of my military styled government issued hat to my friend Oliver who suggested this book to me and is my graphic novel comrade.