Death, Ghosts, Monsters, and Mayhem: Emily Carroll’s Graphic Novel, Through the Woods, is Chilling!

Though I laud the use of graphic novels as a tool to encourage reticent readers to, well, read more, I don’t often read them myself. On rare occasion, though,  one will catch my eye, and then I’m riveted and forced to enjoy beautiful illustrations to go along with an intriguing story. So when I was at the library and saw Emily Carroll’s tome, Though the Woods, and briefly flipped through a few of the pages, there was no avoiding it: it had to come home with me to be digested, contemplated and generally enjoyed at my own leisure. (Especially because my grad classes are assigning painfully boring reading right now–what’s not to love in a graphic novel?)

The book consists of a series of short stories that feel like folk tales, but which the book’s synopsis explains are of the author’s own writing. Each is a stand-alone story, none building on the other as some short story collections tend to do. The pages are richly illustrated in dark, bold colors (as one might expect from the given subject matter). And each story is it’s own element of creepy. The pictures not only serve to “show” the story as it’s told, but are integrated into the telling of the story, making them essential to understanding what’s happening.

In terms of the stories themselves, I thought that they were fairly well done. I mean, I can’t imagine that one would read a graphic novel exclusively for the quality of the story, though one could here. I did find some of the stories to be a bit predictable, but they’re pretty darn short, so you’re not wasting hours of reading time to get to the end of the story in order to learn something you already knew. Each story is a creepy little tale, involving the macabre, the deathly or the flat out scary. What’s more, each feels like it’s been influenced by well-known gothic writers, and that’s more what they feel like–gothic reads–more so than horror. I definitely found them to be channeling Poe, Gilman and  Hawthorne, though I felt that one could also point to influences more modern, like Stephen King. However, I felt that most of these read like dark, gothic fairy tales, and the illustrations really hammered this idea in.

Speaking of illustrations, as noted, they are bold, nicely done, and certainly add to the story itself, fleshing out characters that would otherwise take quite a few more words to describe. The author uses them to convey action as well as emotion, so in many ways they tell the story themselves. Notably, they also spare no details, so if you’re squeamish, be forewarned.

Overall, I thought this was a lovely little collection. It’s a pretty fast read (much is illustration, so it goes quickly) and is certainly one of the most page-turning graphic books that I’ve come across! If you like the creepy and scary, this one is definitely worth trying, perhaps to take a break from other, more onerous reading (just as I did).

What do you think? Any other fans of graphic novels out there? Preferences for things you prefer in your graphic novel?

Cyborgs, Androids and one Very Charming Prince: Marissa Meyer’s Cinder

Who out there doesn’t love a great retelling of a classic fairy tale story? I, for one, seem to never quite get enough–especially when the premise is sufficiently different enough to keep the pages turning, hoping (but not really knowing) how closely the author will choose to follow the traditional text. Pair this with well-written, interesting characters doing cool stuff, and you’ve got a fantastic book. Or, as everything today seems to be being serialized, a new series.

That said, I adored Marissa Meyer’s Cinder, which is the first book in her Lunar Chronicles series. Set in a future time in an Asian-inspired area of the world, we follow part-human, part-machine cyborg Cinder, a respected teen mechanic/engineer, as she is abused by her stepmother and one of her two stepsisters, faces a deadly pandemic, meets the crown Prince, loses a friend and tries to save the world. Her android, Iko, is her one trusted and faithful companion–sort of a like a pet with a personality. But in this tale, Cinder’s no helpless house cleaner singing with the birds: she’s a smart, sassy character with a good eye for repairing electronics, an addictive personality and a big blank hole for a memory of life before becoming “the ward” of her stepmother.

What’s more, this Cinder doesn’t sit around feeling sorry for herself and mooning over a prince. In fact, she’s got so many other life or death events happening around her that she’d be crazy to! With a nasty plague sweeping their city–New Beijing–leaving thousands of dead in it’s wake and taking no prisoners, she’s horrified at the consequences of what it does to her family. (Ahem. I’m trying really, really hard to not spoil this. If I do, my sincere apologies. You should still read the book, though).

Crown Prince Kaito sweeps into her repair stall at the beginning of the book with an older android in need of a tuning, setting the wheels in motion of their awkward acquaintanceship. Through a series of accidents, they keep running into each other. But the relationship between them feels more true and (dare I say?) real than any fairy tale take. While this prince is every bit as dashing as any Disney hero, and certainly more humane than any classic fairy tale royalty, here’s the clencher: he’s fallible. He makes mistakes, admits them, has a personality, is alive and kicking and breathing on the pages. Same too with this Cinder: she’s more loyal than any Disney princess, more human that any fairy tale heroine, but oh so realistically riddled with unanswered questions, hopes, dreams, personality. And she’s fallible. Vulnerable. Interesting.

The story progresses by complicating the plot with a coronation, a Lunar Queen’s most highly dreaded visit, a Doctor who functions partially as a very odd and awkward fairy godfather, and above and beyond all else: hope.

What I Liked:

I know I keep harping on it, but after several disappointments recently, I found the characters here to be amazing. Dynamic, well-written, interesting. Not always predictable, and though the riff on a fairy tale leaves some aspects unsurprising, never did I feel like I knew for sure what was going to happen.

The plot flies along: this author is a master of blending emotion, dialogue, action and reflection. I’m listening already to the next book in the series, and I continue to be amazed at her writing.

The setting, much like the classic stories the author riffs on (the next books in the series play with “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Rapunzel”), is similar enough to what we know to make it a familiar friend, but sufficiently changed enough to make this story timeless and new. Plus, it’s great to read a YA book NOT set in a) America, b) Europe, or c) some completely separate breakdown of the same continents.

I loved how the author was able to bring in classic (Chinese?) symbolism: this is something most certainly lost in YA Lit, unless it’s related to witches or some such. The last such effort I think I’ve seen towards trying to embed some element of symbolic definition was in Cate Tiernan’s Sweep series (yes, I’m still reading it–it’s a long series!). And though I adore Ms. Tiernan’s writing and stories, my goodness does Ms. Meyer do an outstanding job of weaving it all together!

What I Didn’t Like:

Hm. That it ended?

I think perhaps I might have enjoyed a little more explanation as to why this society abhors cyborgs to such a great extent, but that really wasn’t necessary, it would simply be gratuitous, as the reasons behind it seem to slowly unravel the more you read. This is truly a fabulous YA book.

For those of you who have read previous posts of mine, allow me to run a comparison here: I was as excited about reading this as I was reading Kiera Cass’s The Selection Series, which was another Cinderella-esque YA series. I absolutely couldn’t put those books down–in fact, I had to run to the store and buy the remaining ones because I didn’t even have the patience to get them at the library! I feel the same way with this series: I have already downloaded the remaining books in the series on Audible, and as I see that there are shorter companion books to the series, well, I’ll be purchasing those, as well.

Though I do find Ms. Meyer’s spin on the tale to be wholly unique–androids, cyborgs, space shuttles, oh my!–it’s not a sci-fi story, either. (I’m not a fan of sci-fi generally, though Peter Clines is really working hard to change my mind on that). I would like to provide a comparison, but though there are a number of stories out there that are similar in smaller aspects, I can’t think of any one that would be spot on. If you’re waffling on what to read next, though, this is totally worth your time!

Anyone else out there had the chance to read Cinder or the rest of the Lunar Chronicles? Any comparisons that you found were accurate for this one?