Scan barcode
A review by the_chaotic_witch
My Riot by Rick Spears
2.0
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review!
TW: body image issues, ED triggers, intoxication, violence
2/5 stars
This is a beautifully illustrated coming of age story about a girl breaking out of her uptight and rule obeying life to become a punk rock star. It is about friendship, standing up for what you want, and exploring life at the moment.
And while all of that is a beautiful idea, sadly the execution let me down. But first to the positive aspects: the art was remarkable, consistent, with excellent composition and the story was very fluent to read and at times funny.
First of all, the book needs trigger warnings, not only for the body image issues and the bulimic tendencies but also about the violence displayed in the “riot” and the toxicity in the dance community.
Secondly, neither characters nor relationships were explored in any way. Not even our main character. There were major plot holes or scenes; the reader would have needed to explore for themselves, instead of just being told how things turned out or being confronted with the changed situation. Essential topics were brought up either as a plot device or never again to be relevant. If brought up, they have to be discussed in one way or another. It was all too much tell and no show.
In addition to that, the lack of discussion led to romanticizing violence - without explaining why it might be the way of choice and what drives someone to take part in violence. And in the core message not being the freedom and self-discovery through the punk rock and feminism community but being the girl who gets with the wrong people, does unsafe things, is only flinging words around and being angry at the world without giving the reader emotional leverage.
Execution-wise, the timing was off; the age of the characters was unclear as was the period covered. There was no clear climax, and due to the time-compression, the ending was incredibly rushed and did not come off as an epilogue and more caused a reaction of confusion. There were also scenes where the context from one image to the next was not sure.
Something rather neutral was the artistic choices to contrast our main character and her life from the sphere outside it: the color choices were sensibly and cleverly placed, the style fits the story, and the composition was outstanding, though the contrasting between “normal”/”boring”/gender enforcing and “wild”/”cool”/”rough”/”angry” was an exciting choice, it would have been nice to try a bit harder to not equalize it with pretty/right and ugly/wrong.
All in all, this story would have benefitted from a novel-format or (since the art very much added to the storytelling) in a graphic novel series in which the characters, relationships, and themes could have been much more explored.
TW: body image issues, ED triggers, intoxication, violence
2/5 stars
This is a beautifully illustrated coming of age story about a girl breaking out of her uptight and rule obeying life to become a punk rock star. It is about friendship, standing up for what you want, and exploring life at the moment.
And while all of that is a beautiful idea, sadly the execution let me down. But first to the positive aspects: the art was remarkable, consistent, with excellent composition and the story was very fluent to read and at times funny.
First of all, the book needs trigger warnings, not only for the body image issues and the bulimic tendencies but also about the violence displayed in the “riot” and the toxicity in the dance community.
Secondly, neither characters nor relationships were explored in any way. Not even our main character. There were major plot holes or scenes; the reader would have needed to explore for themselves, instead of just being told how things turned out or being confronted with the changed situation. Essential topics were brought up either as a plot device or never again to be relevant. If brought up, they have to be discussed in one way or another. It was all too much tell and no show.
In addition to that, the lack of discussion led to romanticizing violence - without explaining why it might be the way of choice and what drives someone to take part in violence. And in the core message not being the freedom and self-discovery through the punk rock and feminism community but being the girl who gets with the wrong people, does unsafe things, is only flinging words around and being angry at the world without giving the reader emotional leverage.
Execution-wise, the timing was off; the age of the characters was unclear as was the period covered. There was no clear climax, and due to the time-compression, the ending was incredibly rushed and did not come off as an epilogue and more caused a reaction of confusion. There were also scenes where the context from one image to the next was not sure.
Something rather neutral was the artistic choices to contrast our main character and her life from the sphere outside it: the color choices were sensibly and cleverly placed, the style fits the story, and the composition was outstanding, though the contrasting between “normal”/”boring”/gender enforcing and “wild”/”cool”/”rough”/”angry” was an exciting choice, it would have been nice to try a bit harder to not equalize it with pretty/right and ugly/wrong.
All in all, this story would have benefitted from a novel-format or (since the art very much added to the storytelling) in a graphic novel series in which the characters, relationships, and themes could have been much more explored.