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A review by pineconek
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Yeah, I'll say it: my favorite thing is this book.
It's poetic that my 100th book of 2024 may well be my favourite book of the year. I write this review at 1:30am, after finishing this in one sitting. By the halfway mark I knew that I'd stay up late to finish this, and sleep is very low on the priority list now that I've found the sequel on my library's hoopla.
The graphic novel is set up as the notebook of our 10 year old narrator, a young girl who sees (and draws) herself as a wolfman. She lives in a rundown apartment with her mother and brother, goes to the art museum and adores paintings, goes to school and gets mercilessly tormented, goes and visits neighbours who tell her things that they really shouldn't. The last of which is a story about her now-dead neighbor, an orphaned jewish girl growing up in early 20th-century Germany.
This book combines so many things that I love in a story: flawed but fleshed out characters, human tragedy (and misery, and cruelty... what does that say about me...), stunning visual art, dark humour, a precocious child, family secrets, and just... wow. This is part Art Spiegelman (and I'm glad he liked this book), part Lullabies for Little Criminals, and I'm not surprised that Allison Bechdel loved it. And yes, I looked up the lore of this masterpeice and the wikipedia pages for both the book and the author are well worth reading.
I usually read a few high and especially low reviews of a book I finish, because I'm always curious what people didn't like. I'll still do it, but I wanted to write a fully enthusiastic review first because I wanted a record of the gut reaction that this book elicited out of me. This is a genuine masterpiece. 5 stars.
(that said: Be warned that it contains pretty much all mature themes and forms of violence under the sun.)
It's poetic that my 100th book of 2024 may well be my favourite book of the year. I write this review at 1:30am, after finishing this in one sitting. By the halfway mark I knew that I'd stay up late to finish this, and sleep is very low on the priority list now that I've found the sequel on my library's hoopla.
The graphic novel is set up as the notebook of our 10 year old narrator, a young girl who sees (and draws) herself as a wolfman. She lives in a rundown apartment with her mother and brother, goes to the art museum and adores paintings, goes to school and gets mercilessly tormented, goes and visits neighbours who tell her things that they really shouldn't. The last of which is a story about her now-dead neighbor, an orphaned jewish girl growing up in early 20th-century Germany.
This book combines so many things that I love in a story: flawed but fleshed out characters, human tragedy (and misery, and cruelty... what does that say about me...), stunning visual art, dark humour, a precocious child, family secrets, and just... wow. This is part Art Spiegelman (and I'm glad he liked this book), part Lullabies for Little Criminals, and I'm not surprised that Allison Bechdel loved it. And yes, I looked up the lore of this masterpeice and the wikipedia pages for both the book and the author are well worth reading.
I usually read a few high and especially low reviews of a book I finish, because I'm always curious what people didn't like. I'll still do it, but I wanted to write a fully enthusiastic review first because I wanted a record of the gut reaction that this book elicited out of me. This is a genuine masterpiece. 5 stars.
(that said: Be warned that it contains pretty much all mature themes and forms of violence under the sun.)