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lkthomas07's review against another edition
3.0
Wow, this was DENSE, lol. Not quite what I was expecting, but also very interesting. I didn’t realize I knew as much about Alan Turing as I apparently do! But there was also so, so much that I didn’t know. And also many things I’ll never wrap my head around
emromc's review against another edition
2.0
Only my third-ish graphic novel, and I really like the idea of them. I don't know why I haven't read more, except that I always considered them juvenile when I was younger and way more of a book snob than I am now. I didn't really click with much of this particular story even though I like the movie, maybe because I'm just not a math and computer brain. But I'm certainly up for trying more in the graphic novel genre.
aphonusbalonus's review against another edition
2.0
Definitely want to explore more books about Turing’s life in the future
kaylecorey's review against another edition
2.0
I love that Alan Turing's story is becoming more broadly shared with the world. His impacts on the computing world are incredible and should be celebrated and recognized. However, I did not like this graphic novel. The story telling style is not an effective vehicle for such a powerful message, the animation style felt amateur, and using an interview format felt like it minimized Turing to the memories of others, and not to who he was himself.
tchaikovtea's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.0
After reading through other reviews of this book, I have come to some conclusions. The people that enjoy this book are people that knew more about Alan Turing coming in and the people that did not enjoy the book as much are people that knew very little about him. The latter are also people that were expecting it to be more like the movie of the same name. (These are by no means universal to all reviews left for this book, just a pattern I started to notice.)
As someone who enjoyed this book and also knows a lot about Alan Turing, I feel like I should give a few warnings. First, I do think that the book makes a bit more sense if you are a bit more familiar with Alan Turing before reading. The book uses a very creative narrative structure that involves "interviews" with people that knew him and a "Narrator" (Alan himself) that is also "Interviewer" (NOT Alan). The blending together of these three things is a bit easier to follow if you 1. already know who these people are and 2. are familiar with the references and quotes being used. Second, this book is NOT like The Imitation Game the movie. If you have already seen the movie, then I recommend trying not to think about it while reading this book. And if you have not seen it, I recommend not watching it until maybe after you have read the book. The movie is not terribly accurate when portraying Alan's life but can be entertaining if you want a WW2 movie.
That all being said, I do recommend this book! The art is unique and very fitting, and the writing flows very well. There are some creative liberties taken, however overall, it is a pretty accurate example of historical narrative. If you do want to know more about Alan (either before or after reading this book) some good places to look are - Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges, Alan M. Turing by Sara Turing, The Man Who Knew Too Much by David Leavitt, and the Kings College Alan Turing Digital Archive.
As someone who enjoyed this book and also knows a lot about Alan Turing, I feel like I should give a few warnings. First, I do think that the book makes a bit more sense if you are a bit more familiar with Alan Turing before reading. The book uses a very creative narrative structure that involves "interviews" with people that knew him and a "Narrator" (Alan himself) that is also "Interviewer" (NOT Alan). The blending together of these three things is a bit easier to follow if you 1. already know who these people are and 2. are familiar with the references and quotes being used. Second, this book is NOT like The Imitation Game the movie. If you have already seen the movie, then I recommend trying not to think about it while reading this book. And if you have not seen it, I recommend not watching it until maybe after you have read the book. The movie is not terribly accurate when portraying Alan's life but can be entertaining if you want a WW2 movie.
That all being said, I do recommend this book! The art is unique and very fitting, and the writing flows very well. There are some creative liberties taken, however overall, it is a pretty accurate example of historical narrative. If you do want to know more about Alan (either before or after reading this book) some good places to look are - Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges, Alan M. Turing by Sara Turing, The Man Who Knew Too Much by David Leavitt, and the Kings College Alan Turing Digital Archive.
rebeccalm's review against another edition
3.0
An interesting graphic novel about some of the life and work of Alan Turing.
andipants's review against another edition
4.0
I just recently saw the movie of the same title, and so picked this up on a whim when I saw it at the library. It's very interesting, and covers more of Turing's life than the movie (which focused mainly on his work during WWII). The story is fascinating, and presents a good balance of character and emotion with the more technical aspects of Turing's work; I know very little of higher math and the workings of computers, but such is not required to keep up with the action. I liked the art style, but I did find the switching between narrators confusing at times, especially since it was never made clear who was asking the questions in the "interview" sections or what their purpose was, and also because Turing himself is sometimes a narrator, even though the others seem all to be narrating from a time after his death. Overall though it was definitely a worthwhile read.
isabellarobinson7's review against another edition
3.0
Rating: 3.5 stars
I quite liked this book! I felt it captured the story of Alan Turing really well, and had all the aspects of a good graphic novel.
One thing I was rather disappointed with, was that there wasn't much about Turing actually cracking the Nazi Enigma, and it didn't really show the adversity he came up against while do so, but I enjoyed the section of it nonetheless.
I also found that something that did make it difficult to comprehend the scope of the story, was that while there were speech bubbles about what the characters in the pictures on that particular page, there were also kind of narrator-type sections of text from characters talking after the events that were taking place currently in the pictures (wow, that was really confusing, I hope you can make some sense of that). While this text was good and essential to the overall plot and execution of the story, I couldn't always tell who was saying what in the way you can with speech bubbles.
Anyway, despite this, The Imitation Game was a good book. The pictures were really cleverly drawn and worked in nicely with the font used in the speech bubbles. Would definitely recommend.
I quite liked this book! I felt it captured the story of Alan Turing really well, and had all the aspects of a good graphic novel.
One thing I was rather disappointed with, was that there wasn't much about Turing actually cracking the Nazi Enigma, and it didn't really show the adversity he came up against while do so, but I enjoyed the section of it nonetheless.
I also found that something that did make it difficult to comprehend the scope of the story, was that while there were speech bubbles about what the characters in the pictures on that particular page, there were also kind of narrator-type sections of text from characters talking after the events that were taking place currently in the pictures (wow, that was really confusing, I hope you can make some sense of that). While this text was good and essential to the overall plot and execution of the story, I couldn't always tell who was saying what in the way you can with speech bubbles.
Anyway, despite this, The Imitation Game was a good book. The pictures were really cleverly drawn and worked in nicely with the font used in the speech bubbles. Would definitely recommend.