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kara_bianca_reads 's review for:
Monstress, Vol. 3: Haven
by Marjorie M. Liu
Summary:
This is the third installment in the Monstress series, which follows Maika Halfwolf, who has an old god living inside her, in this complex world at war.
Characters 4/5:
I like some of the characters, especially Kippa, but I find Maika (our main character) a bit hard to connect to. It's not helped by the disconnect between her flashbacks and her current moments, where I think her personality is a bit all over the place. She's not a good guy, per se, she's very morally grey and that's intentional, but it did make it really hard for me to connect with her. There's also a HUGE amount of side characters, and sometimes they are not visually distinct enough (or perhaps the way the panels are drawn lend to the problem) for me to tell them apart and keep track of their roles.
Plot 3/5:
Tying in with the previous comment, I find all of the installments in this series a little hard to follow. The plot kind of happens in fits and spurts with a lot of the in-betweens explained by characters. The end-game is super hard to determine (I still don't know what it is), and that made it really hard for me to follow along and get invested.
Art Style 4/5:
The art style is super pretty, but as I mentioned before, the layout of the panels sometimes contributes to my confusion as I'm reading this series. Often, the same characters would be drawn VERY differently between panels (which is kind of a plot device, there's a lot of "possession" of a sort in this) but I'd have to keep going -- "Oh wait, that's that person", which rips me RIGHT out of the story. I still can't get over how gorgeous the art is though. I would hang EVERY full page panel on my wall.
Setting and atmosphere 4.5/5:
The dark atmosphere of this is really gorgeous, and leads on from the art style, because obviously they tie very closely together. This is very gory, and even when its not being gory, the general colour scheme is very dark, and it just feels a lot of the things. The atmosphere is probably the strongest part of this series.
Sometimes I wish this plot was told in a novel format, rather than graphic, or somehow a combination of both, because I feel like the plot is FAR too complicated to make sense in this format, or at least be easy to follow. I do really love the art though.
This is the third installment in the Monstress series, which follows Maika Halfwolf, who has an old god living inside her, in this complex world at war.
Characters 4/5:
I like some of the characters, especially Kippa, but I find Maika (our main character) a bit hard to connect to. It's not helped by the disconnect between her flashbacks and her current moments, where I think her personality is a bit all over the place. She's not a good guy, per se, she's very morally grey and that's intentional, but it did make it really hard for me to connect with her. There's also a HUGE amount of side characters, and sometimes they are not visually distinct enough (or perhaps the way the panels are drawn lend to the problem) for me to tell them apart and keep track of their roles.
Plot 3/5:
Tying in with the previous comment, I find all of the installments in this series a little hard to follow. The plot kind of happens in fits and spurts with a lot of the in-betweens explained by characters. The end-game is super hard to determine (I still don't know what it is), and that made it really hard for me to follow along and get invested.
Art Style 4/5:
The art style is super pretty, but as I mentioned before, the layout of the panels sometimes contributes to my confusion as I'm reading this series. Often, the same characters would be drawn VERY differently between panels (which is kind of a plot device, there's a lot of "possession" of a sort in this) but I'd have to keep going -- "Oh wait, that's that person", which rips me RIGHT out of the story. I still can't get over how gorgeous the art is though. I would hang EVERY full page panel on my wall.
Setting and atmosphere 4.5/5:
The dark atmosphere of this is really gorgeous, and leads on from the art style, because obviously they tie very closely together. This is very gory, and even when its not being gory, the general colour scheme is very dark, and it just feels a lot of the things. The atmosphere is probably the strongest part of this series.
Sometimes I wish this plot was told in a novel format, rather than graphic, or somehow a combination of both, because I feel like the plot is FAR too complicated to make sense in this format, or at least be easy to follow. I do really love the art though.