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zombiezami's review against another edition
4.5
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Colonisation, and War
Moderate: Body horror, Medical content, Blood, Grief, and Violence
Minor: Sexual assault, Ableism, Death, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Vomit
augustar14's review
- 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
4.5
I love the world Blue has created and the possibilities they lead the reader to consider when reading this story.
Graphic: War, Violence, Gun violence, Death of parent, Bullying, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Colonisation, and Child death
Minor: Vomit
thebackcatalogue's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Read the full review @ thebackcatalogue.substack.com
Moderate: War, Gun violence, Violence, Death of parent, and Homophobia
Minor: Medical content, Bullying, and Blood
Depicted: War, Violence (Including Gun Violence), Death Of A Parent, Homophobia, Imperialism Mentioned: Medical Content, Bullying, Bloodbeforeviolets's review
- 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
3.0
For fans of Steven Universe, this wholesome yet insightful graphic novels tells the story of two nonbinary teens who live incredibly different lives across a giant space war.
The characters were so lovable and wonderfully diverse; there wasn't a cishet person in sight, and most of the characters were POC as well. The more cartoon-ish style of the graphic novel (again, reminiscent of SU), especially within the figures, kept the content feeling accessible amid some of the darker or more difficult-to-understand moments.
Some incredibly nuanced and deep topics were brought to light amid the war themes, mostly in regards to the way that civilians and indigenous people are treated as props or disposable casualties. One of the characters also struggled with PTSD and was constantly having to live within survival mode, as the product of a war. Epic sci-fi like this, especially in YA, doesn't tend to bring up these more grounded and realistic conversations about war, and I felt this really set this work apart. However, these topics were introduced and set up in such a way that opened a lot of doors for messages and calls-to-action for the audience, yet seemed to fizzle out, and they weren't utilized to their full potential, especially in the more climactic moments of the book. Certain bits of dialogue actually seemed like it was going to bring these themes to a close, but went unacknowledged, which seemed... odd. A wonderful start, but left me hanging.
I also found this graphic novel to struggle within its own format. The author didn't seem to have a great grasp on the idea of using the panel as a camera lens, and the transitions of scenes or moments of dialogue were often clunky at best. Also, there were major inconsistencies with the speech bubbles and the formatting of their tails, which made it confusing as to who was speaking at times or how we were meant to interpret their speech. It seemed like it just needed a final editing round by someone other than the author.
CW/TW: war & war themes, parental death (offscreen), violence, gun violence, colonization, trauma/PTSD, vehicle accident, medical content (minor), blood, dysphoria (mention), emesis, bullying (brief)
Graphic: War
Moderate: Violence, Gun violence, Colonisation, and Death of parent
Minor: Dysphoria, Vomit, Bullying, Car accident, Medical content, and Blood