Category: Graphic Novel

Title: The Handmaid’s Tale: The Graphic Novel
Author: Renée Nault, Margaret Atwood
Genre: Graphic Novel, Fiction
Publisher: McClelland and Stewart
Source: Library
Format: Ebook
Release Date: March 26, 2019
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Everything Handmaids wear is red: the colour of blood, which defines us.

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, where women are prohibited from holding jobs, reading, and forming friendships. She serves in the household of the Commander and his wife, and under the new social order she has only one purpose: once a month, she must lie on her back and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if they are fertile. But Offred remembers the years before Gilead, when she was an independent woman who had a job, a family, and a name of her own. Now, her memories and her will to survive are acts of rebellion.

Provocative, startling, prophetic, The Handmaid’s Tale has long been a global phenomenon. With this stunning graphic novel adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s modern classic, beautifully realized by artist Renee Nault, the terrifying reality of Gilead has been brought to vivid life like never before.

Review:

It has been years since I originally read The Handmaid’s Tale, so I read this graphic novel as a refresher before I read the sequel The Testaments. This graphic novel is a great way to read the story.

I really enjoyed this story. It’s a dystopian, but it seems a little too close to a possible future. It was relatable when Margaret Atwood wrote it, and it still is today. It’s an unfortunate aspect of the book, but it shows how cyclical history can be.

The illustrations were amazing in this book. It was mostly in black and white with lots of red. There were a few other colours when certain characters appeared, such as the wives in blue, which highlighted the distinction between the different types of women. The story was condensed to Offred’s main plot, but it gave a full picture of what was happening.

I highly recommend this graphic novel!

What to read next:

Have you read The Handmaid’s Tale: The Graphic Novel? What did you think of it?

Title: Frogcatchers
Author: Jeff Lemire
Genre: Fiction, Graphic Novel
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Canada
Source: Publisher
Format: Hardcover
Release Date: September 24, 2019
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Experience a surreal descent into one man’s psychosis in this haunting and chilling graphic novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Roughneck and Sweet Tooth, “the Stephen King of comics” (Maclean’s).

A man wakes up alone in a strange room with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. The padlocked doors and barren lobby reinforce the strangeness of this place. This is—as he reads from an old-fashioned keychain beside his bed—the Edgewater Hotel. Even worse, something ominous seems to be lurking in one of the rooms.

But when he meets a young companion—the only other soul in this vast, enveloping emptiness—his new friend begs him not to unlock the door. There must be something behind it…but what?

A haunted hotel on the edge of reality, an endless bridge spanning an infinite ocean, and a man and a boy looking for a way out. This is the setting for a boundary-pushing, genre-defying new work of fiction by one of comics’ master storytellers. 

Review:

This was a beautiful graphic novel. 

The story is about a man who is dying. He relives his youth that he spent catching frogs. He goes back to a hotel that he designed in his mind, all while he is lying in his hospital bed, in his final moments. 

I liked the way this old man was contrasted by a young boy. It wasn’t clear at the beginning that the boy was the younger version of him. It only became apparent through their shared memories. 

I loved the art in this graphic novel, too. It was mostly in black and white sketches, which are Jeff Lemire’s classic style. The images in colour represented the present time. This use of colour reminded me of the Wizard of Oz movie, where only Oz was shown in colour. In this case, it was the opposite, since their real life was in colour and the parts in the old man’s mind were in black and white. 

I really enjoyed this graphic novel!

Thank you Simon and Schuster for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. 

What to read next:

Have you read Frogcatchers? What did you think of it?