It was impossible to read this graphic novel for review. The dialogue didn't accompany the panels, there were empty speech bubbles instead, and on their separate pages, the writing was so poorly formatted that it was incomprehensible.

I'm baffled that this book was uploaded for requesting.

There is some promise in this opening chapter of whatever is intended to come. There's a lot of work needed on the artwork first, however, to make both the book - and more importantly - the characters become distinguished. Odd decisions pepper the page, too, like the choice of broad guttering or none, all at random. But what we have here is the formation of a friendship between two travelers on a mission, that could become a decent and interesting PG fantasy saga. The jury debating whether that will happen is still out, though.

Book – MFK (MFK #1)
Author – Nilah Magruder
Star rating - ★★★☆☆
No. of Pages – 129
Cover – Gorgeous
Genre – Comic, Graphic Novel, Children's, Death


** COPY RECEIVED THROUGH NETGALLEY **


Okay, so this was a strange one for me. The cover and blurb tells us that this is Abbie's story, but it's really not. It's the story of Jaime, the kid who discovers Abbie already on her trek to scatter her mother's ashes, injured and with a dying pet/travel animal. Now, considering the cover shows Abbie travelling with this animal, I find it a bit misleading, because the animal dies on the first page they enter the story and there is no “journey” that matches the image on the cover, within the actual story. Abbie is discovered kneeling beside her dead animal on page one of her part of the story.

The story begins with Jaime helping his grandfather gather sand, which is a thing, apparently. Then it journeys through finding Abbie and her dead pet, taking her back home to be treated, and how she changes everything in their small hick town, in the middle of nowhere, just by being there.

The entire story is told in Jaime's POV, through what he sees and feels, with only a few deviations into Abbie's thoughts about her mother. It explores her magical powers in a fight, which would have been more impressive if we haven't been set up for the big reveal both thanks to the blurb and Jaime's aunt spilling the beans too early.

Overall, this is just a chapter in a bigger story, but it wasn't really my cup of tea. It took too long to get to the point, gave away things that shouldn't have been revealed yet, and failed to keep my attention. The art work was excellent and the plot itself could have been great, but there were a few too many problems for my liking.