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A review by jazhandz
Nightmare in Savannah by Lela Gwenn, Chris Sanchez
4.0
Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Nightmare in Savannah is a revenge fantasy gone wrong: when a group of social outcasts discover that they're all fae, they immediately get to work wronging everyone who has ever wronged them. It's a fun premise, with memorable characters and interesting, complex relationships between them.
The writing here is unfortunately 3-star writing. The setup is great, and the way the fae lore slowly unfolded was fantastic. But Lela Gwenn's dialogue hews a little too quippy to be natural, to the point where I made faces while I was reading. The story is interesting, but the pacing is breakneck - even another 20 pages would've helped loosen things up - and the ending ultimately felt rushed and unearned because of it.
Luckily, Rowan MacColl's art is 5-star art. The visual storytelling here is impeccable, and the art style flows from high school romcom to genuinely unnerving horror with ease. And there IS a horror element - not gross, although there is mild blood and some hair/eyelash picking, but more tension and unease that would've been fine in written word but that I found delightfully unnerving with MacColl's art. The visual element brings the rating up to a solid 4 stars. Great graphics, so-so novel.
Nightmare in Savannah is a revenge fantasy gone wrong: when a group of social outcasts discover that they're all fae, they immediately get to work wronging everyone who has ever wronged them. It's a fun premise, with memorable characters and interesting, complex relationships between them.
The writing here is unfortunately 3-star writing. The setup is great, and the way the fae lore slowly unfolded was fantastic. But Lela Gwenn's dialogue hews a little too quippy to be natural, to the point where I made faces while I was reading. The story is interesting, but the pacing is breakneck - even another 20 pages would've helped loosen things up - and the ending ultimately felt rushed and unearned because of it.
Luckily, Rowan MacColl's art is 5-star art. The visual storytelling here is impeccable, and the art style flows from high school romcom to genuinely unnerving horror with ease. And there IS a horror element - not gross, although there is mild blood and some hair/eyelash picking, but more tension and unease that would've been fine in written word but that I found delightfully unnerving with MacColl's art. The visual element brings the rating up to a solid 4 stars. Great graphics, so-so novel.