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Dec 05, 2018fluffyjc rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
This book has a story framed within a story, both of which are compelling with interesting characters. The book touches on many sensitive 'adult' subjects, despite the protagonist being young. The art is done all in crosshatching which is very beautiful. Some things are rendered precisely and lovingly and some things are done more quickly and expressively. This wasn't a negative for me but it should be noted that not every panel is pretty, if art consistency is important to you. There were two main issues I had with this volume. Mainly, the flow of the panels is not great. There were quite a few places where it wasn't clear to the reader what order the text should be read in. It didn't keep me from understanding the story personally, but it was a bit distracting to have to go back and reread some things in a different order. This is the author's debut graphic novel and you can tell she is inexperienced in this area. The second thing I'd keep in mind is that this is volume 1 of 2 and it does not stand alone as a story. The novel cuts off in what you might call a cliffhanger but to me it just felt like the story suddenly stopped right before the ending. While this might be okay if the comic was released in many small issues, after reading a large volume like this I would have liked some closure, even if not every plot thread was resolved. Not knowing it wasn't stand-alone when I started reading, the ending left me feeling that I missed something. Despite those things I still enjoyed reading this and look forward to the conclusion.