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?
The Alpha and the Omega: The Endless Ramblings of a YA Lit Lover 