You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

Reviews tagging 'Cannibalism'

Monstress, Vol. 1: Awakening by Sana Takeda, Marjorie Liu

40 reviews

robinks's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into when I started this graphic novel. It is very intense and very mysterious, and even at the end, I have many unanswered questions (like Maika). The illustrations are beautiful and horrific.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

syllareads's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Monstress is a beautiful Graphic Novel series and the first volume alone shows that beautifully. I'm in love with that artstyle!

Sadly, the story itself was extremely confusing to me and I found it very hard to follow it. I'm not that great with Graphic Novels to begin with, so I don't 100% fault the series, but I had a hard time trying to understand what was happening and who these people were. The worldbuilding itself felt great but I was given no time to try and understand it and the weird and long history lessons in between only helped to a certain degree. I was also left feeling emotionally unattached to the characters (which was probably because I literally forgot every single name and had a hard time assigning faces to things that were happening).

It did intrigue me enough to continue on, though, so...goal achieved?

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

doodeedoda's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

raccoonsinatrenchcoat's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Absolutely beautiful art and really intriguing story. I love the women-focused narrative (most drawn characters present as women) and I am really interested in the magic/lore systems. Well presented, thought out, and written. Can't wait to pick up the other compendiums. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

totallyshelfaware's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

house_of_hannah's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I saw this had won a "Best Publication forTeens" award, so I was surprised at how dark and graphic it was in the end. This has a ton of horror elements, but if you cannot handle gore I would not pick this up. 

So the art is 100% 5/5. It is absolutely gorgeous, and I can stare at some of the pages forever. On the flip side of that there are some terrifying scenes. The artist can make someone look beautiful in one panel, and then grotesque when they show their true colors. It's really fantastic. Some character designs and outfits really give off a Final Fantasy feel as well. 

The story is quite interesting, and I am invested in the characters. I for sure want to continue this series, but it kinda falls into the trap of Fantasy books where you don't really understand what the characters are talking about in the beginning, because we don't know the words for the places and people yet. At the end of a lot of the chapters there is an info dump page as well that goes more in depth on the history of the world and why this conflict exists. It just shows how complicated the universe this story is based in is. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

hanarama's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

First off, the art is beautiful. I was first drawn to this book by the art. It's very elegant and expressive even in depicting violence. 

I don't know how much I can say on the story yet. The first volume (issues 1-6) set up a lot of the groundwork for what I suspect will be explored later. This early on, the story consisted mostly of world building and character establishment. 

The world building is very good and is what carried me through most of the book. So early on the characters haven't undergone a lot of character development so it's really the world building that gets you interested in learning more. There seem to be many secrets hinted at, just waiting to be uncovered later on. 

This volume ends on a major twist/reveal, that I think is going to drive a lot of character moments in the next volume. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

inferiorwit's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

filipacarvalho's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark fast-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

What I appreciate the most about this graphic novel is the absolutely stunning art style. I did feel like the world building and the plot got a bit to convoluted and hard to follow at times. But that being said, I still enjoyed it a lot and the side characters are the best!

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

wordwilderness's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark tense fast-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I really enjoyed reading this! Definitely a good introduction to graphic novels. Can’t wait to read the rest of the series!

Expand filter menu Content Warnings