A thought-provoking, heart-rending science fiction/romance mashup.
Young love across the multiverse.
In mid-1990s Texas, Ludo Carre, the son of a mechanic father and military police mother, meets Arlo Quinones at a barbecue. The chemistry is immediate, and the two young teens bond over a video game. As they get older, they begin dating until Ludo’s family is transferred to another base a few hours away. Like many relationships, theirs does not stand the challenge of distance. Years later, Ludo’s family returns to Arlo’s base, and he learns that she is missing. Desperate, he begins to search for her. Ludo learns that Arlo has become unmoored from time and can exist simultaneously within different timelines. As he struggles to understand, he discovers that maybe the only way to be with her is to let her go. With cinematically styled, full-color illustrations, this offering deftly captures the angst of adolescent love and the force and volatility of teenage emotions. While readers may easily develop a visceral connection to Arlo and Ludo, certain details are conspicuously absent, such as why Arlo can time-hop (although a possible military connection is hinted). As the narrative jumps among timelines, sometimes there are explicit cues of a temporal shift, other times not, demanding a close reading. Quibbles aside, this is a fun, fast-paced ride that should leave its audience ruminating about time, coincidence, and love. Ludo presents white; Arlo is cued as Latinx.
A thought-provoking, heart-rending science fiction/romance mashup. (Graphic science fiction. 13-adult)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62010-731-7
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Oni Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.
In this YA graphic novel, an alienated Métis girl learns about her people’s Canadian history.
Métis teenager Echo Desjardins finds herself living in a home away from her mother, attending a new school, and feeling completely lonely as a result. She daydreams in class and wanders the halls listening to a playlist of her mother’s old CDs. At home, she shuts herself up in her room. But when her history teacher begins to lecture about the Pemmican Wars of early 1800s Saskatchewan, Echo finds herself swept back to that time. She sees the Métis people following the bison with their mobile hunting camp, turning the animals’ meat into pemmican, which they sell to the Northwest Company in order to buy supplies for the winter. Echo meets a young girl named Marie, who introduces Echo to the rhythms of Métis life. She finally understands what her Métis heritage actually means. But the joys are short-lived, as conflicts between the Métis and their rivals in the Hudson Bay Company come to a bloody head. The tragic history of her people will help explain the difficulties of the Métis in Echo’s own time, including those of her mother and the teen herself. Accompanied by dazzling art by Henderson (A Blanket of Butterflies, 2017, etc.) and colorist Yaciuk (Fire Starters, 2016, etc.), this tale is a brilliant bit of time travel. Readers are swept back to 19th-century Saskatchewan as fully as Echo herself. Vermette’s (The Break, 2017, etc.) dialogue is sparse, offering a mostly visual, deeply contemplative juxtaposition of the present and the past. Echo’s eventual encounter with her mother (whose fate has been kept from readers up to that point) offers a powerful moment of connection that is both unexpected and affecting. “Are you…proud to be Métis?” Echo asks her, forcing her mother to admit, sheepishly: “I don’t really know much about it.” With this series opener, the author provides a bit more insight into what that means.
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.Pub Date: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55379-678-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Will appeal to manga fans but raises questions around depictions of racialized material.
An illustrated reimagining of one of Shakespeare’s most memorable tragedies.
From the very beginning of this clever adaptation, effort is made to prioritize accessibility of both the manga form and the classic Shakespearean play: The frontmatter briefly highlights the reading direction of the panels, and characters are labeled when introduced, coming to life via a striking combination of early modern Venetian dress; quintessential manga hairdos and facial expressions; and pronounced linework. Like the rest of the series, this account of Othello remains faithful to the original. The black-and-white illustrations allow for Iago’s conniving manipulations to manifest visually as well as animating characters’ bigotry in impactful, distressing ways. However, there are shortcomings: Where the original text may use parentheticals and asides to progress the story, the occasional appearance of parentheses in speech bubbles are a distracting reminder that comics utilize storytelling tools that haven’t been fully adopted here. Likewise, panel after panel of Othello’s turn to violence and his enraged face obscured by shadow provide a poignant dramatic effect but seem to exacerbate prejudices inherent to both the play and medium. Not only is the titular character visually distinguished from other characters by his shading, hair, lips, and overall size, unfortunately neither Shakespeare nor the illustrator seem wholly prepared for a contemporary conversation regarding racial representation in one of literature’s most infamous depictions of othering.
Will appeal to manga fans but raises questions around depictions of racialized material. (adapter’s notes, character designs) (Graphic fiction. 13-18)Pub Date: May 25, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-947808-13-3
Page Count: 420
Publisher: Manga Classics
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
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