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A review by thebooknerdscorner
Queen of the Sea by Dylan Meconis
2.0
"Queen of the Sea" is a middle grade graphic novel that centers around a nunnery in an alternative history of the United Kingdom during the turmoil between Queen Elizabeth I and her sister Queen Mary.
This story follow a young girl named Margaret that has grown up in a nunnery on a remote island. It follows her early life and the drabness that the life as a nun can sometimes entail. The action truly starts when ex-queen Eleanor is banished to the isle by her sister. Eleanor's arrival leads Margaret to discover things that she never would have dreamed of about the nunnery and herself. Eleanor and Margaret form a somewhat reluctant alliance to try get what they both desire.
Not going to lie, I don't know much about Britain's royal family and I don't read the summaries of books before going into them so my brain was having a hard time trying to decipher who was who at the beginning of this story. This is partially my fault, but I still think it is weird that this story is so steeped in truth (literally there is a picture of the most famous picture of Henry VIII in this book, but they call him by a different name), yet the author decided to set it in an alternative world. In the author's note it is stated that they didn't want to mess up history, but it still seems a little suspicious to me.
Honestly, there wasn't anything horribly wrong with this book, I just found it incredibly boring. The artstyle was meh for me, I didn't love any of the characters, and the ending wasn't very climatic. I also found the narration in this graphic novel a bit strange, because it would randomly abandon the panels and give long strands of words. This took me out of the story a bit and felt like I was just being lectured at from time to time.
Overall, I didn't have high standards going into this book, and it pretty much just met them. I think if you really enjoyed the royal family, this book would be much more appealing to you, but I just had lukewarm feelings towards it.
This story follow a young girl named Margaret that has grown up in a nunnery on a remote island. It follows her early life and the drabness that the life as a nun can sometimes entail. The action truly starts when ex-queen Eleanor is banished to the isle by her sister. Eleanor's arrival leads Margaret to discover things that she never would have dreamed of about the nunnery and herself. Eleanor and Margaret form a somewhat reluctant alliance to try get what they both desire.
Not going to lie, I don't know much about Britain's royal family and I don't read the summaries of books before going into them so my brain was having a hard time trying to decipher who was who at the beginning of this story. This is partially my fault, but I still think it is weird that this story is so steeped in truth (literally there is a picture of the most famous picture of Henry VIII in this book, but they call him by a different name), yet the author decided to set it in an alternative world. In the author's note it is stated that they didn't want to mess up history, but it still seems a little suspicious to me.
Honestly, there wasn't anything horribly wrong with this book, I just found it incredibly boring. The artstyle was meh for me, I didn't love any of the characters, and the ending wasn't very climatic. I also found the narration in this graphic novel a bit strange, because it would randomly abandon the panels and give long strands of words. This took me out of the story a bit and felt like I was just being lectured at from time to time.
Overall, I didn't have high standards going into this book, and it pretty much just met them. I think if you really enjoyed the royal family, this book would be much more appealing to you, but I just had lukewarm feelings towards it.