A review by fareehareads
Where Black Stars Rise by Nadia Shammas, Marie Enger

dark emotional reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

This horror graphic novel did a fantastic job utilizing the panels to keep the stakes high. The art style is dark and at times, convoluted in visibility, but it only added to the cosmic quality of the dimensional travel. I love when a story blends together elements of cultural/spacial history in with a speculative fiction setting and this comic is no different. It begins with Dr. Amal Robardin, a therapist new to their practice that recently immigrated from Beirut. Their very first patient, Yasmin, has schizophrenia and their first session is, well, not very good for either of them. Yasmin has been seeing visions that she is convinced are real and goes missing, in search for answers that no therapist or other being int his reality can provide. Distraught over Yasmin's disappearance (which Amal takes as a personal failure on their part), this failed therapist with a lot of baggage of their own goes on a search for Yasmin that takes them way beyond their wildest expectations.

 I highly recommend all of Nadia Shammas' work, everything I've read thus far from this cartoonist has been inventive and genre bending in quality. Definitely pick up Where Black Stars Rise.