Fans of witchcraft literature will appreciate the book’s respectful approach; let’s just say—it’s spellbinding.
A woman’s tormented by a malevolent spirit that’s made its way from 17th-century Salem in search of revenge.
Diane, a bartender at a go-go club, is looking for her missing friend, Alicia. She uses her psychic abilities and witchcraft to conclude that a book of spells she’d bought—the Book of Shadows—has brought an evil spirit into the present day. Diane travels via hypnosis to 1692 Salem to stop the wicked Joshua and save her friend. But something’s not right when she returns, especially with her fiancé, Anthony, the detective she met while looking for Alicia. The author’s simple, breezy prose reads as young adult, but its mature themes seem appropriate for older readers, particularly since no teen protagonists are present. Regardless, the book’s topic will undoubtedly attract younger bibliophiles, and the novel wouldn’t be unsuitable, since there’s nary a sex scene and violence is typically described after the fact. The journey to old Salem is a turning point and splits the novel in two parts. The first zeroes in on solving the mystery of Alicia’s disappearance and ensuing attacks, as well as a murder, but it’s bogged down by Diane and Anthony’s zigzagging relationship. Anthony is protective but unsupportive; he laughs every time Diane mentions the supernatural. The book, however, flourishes in its 17th-century setting. The dialogue assumes a colonial dialect; for example, a new love interest of Diane’s says, “Thou hast come to join us.” Back in the present day, Anthony besieges Diane with questionable, sometimes aggressive behavior, a strange woman tries to contact her and images of her friends turn monstrous. The novel’s latter half ups the creepiness by saturating the pages in atmosphere, making great use of the cold, snowy outdoors, and portraying Diane in a perpetual dreamlike state.
Fans of witchcraft literature will appreciate the book’s respectful approach; let’s just say—it’s spellbinding.Pub Date: July 9, 2012
ISBN: 978-1477618127
Page Count: 374
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Immensely enjoyable.
The debut graphic novel from Mohamed presents a modern Egypt full of magical realism where wishes have been industrialized and heavily regulated.
The story opens with a televised public service announcement from the General Committee of Wish Supervision and Licensing about the dangers of “third-class wishes”—wishes that come in soda cans and tend to backfire on wishers who aren’t specific enough (like a wish to lose weight resulting in limbs falling from the wisher’s body). Thus begins a brilliant play among magic, the mundane, and bureaucracy that centers around a newsstand kiosk where a devout Muslim is trying to unload the three “first-class wishes” (contained in elegant glass bottles and properly licensed by the government) that have come into his possession, since he believes his religion forbids him to use them. As he gradually unloads the first-class wishes on a poor, regretful widow (who then runs afoul of authorities determined to manipulate her out of her valuable commodity) and a university student who seeks a possibly magical solution to their mental health crisis (but struggles with whether a wish to always be happy might have unintended consequences), interstitials give infographic histories of wishes, showing how the Western wish-industrial complex has exploited the countries where wishes are mined (largely in the Middle East). The book is exceptionally imaginative while also being wonderfully grounded in touching human relationships, existential quandaries, and familiar geopolitical and socio-economic dynamics. Mohamed’s art balances perfectly between cartoon and realism, powerfully conveying emotions, and her strong, clean lines gorgeously depict everything from an anguished face to an ornate bottle. Charts and graphs nicely break up the reading experience while also concisely building this larger world of everyday wishes. Mohamed has a great sense of humor, which comes out in footnotes and casual asides throughout.
Immensely enjoyable.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-524-74841-8
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Gorgeous and troubling.
Cartoonist Kuper (Kafkaesque, 2018, etc.) delivers a graphic-novel adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s literary classic exploring the horror at the center of colonial exploitation.
As a group of sailors floats on the River Thames in 1899, a particularly adventurous member notes that England was once “one of the dark places of the earth,” referring to the land before the arrival of the Romans. This well-connected vagabond then regales his friends with his boyhood obsession with the blank places on maps, which eventually led him to captain a steamboat up a great African river under the employ of a corporate empire dedicated to ripping the riches from foreign land. Marlow’s trip to what was known as the Dark Continent exposes him to the frustrations of bureaucracy, the inhumanity employed by Europeans on the local population, and the insanity plaguing those committed to turning a profit. In his introduction, Kuper outlines his approach to the original book, which featured extensive use of the n-word and worked from a general worldview that European males are the forgers of civilization (even if they suffered a “soul [that] had gone mad” for their efforts), explaining that “by choosing a different point of view to illustrate, otherwise faceless and undefined characters were brought to the fore without altering Conrad’s text.” There is a moment when a scene of indiscriminate shelling reveals the Africans fleeing, and there are some places where the positioning of the Africans within the panel gives them more prominence, but without new text added to fully frame the local people, it’s hard to feel that they have reached equal footing. Still, Kuper’s work admirably deletes the most offensive of Conrad’s language while presenting graphically the struggle of the native population in the face of foreign exploitation. Kuper is a master cartoonist, and his pages and panels are a feast for the eyes.
Gorgeous and troubling.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-393-63564-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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