Scarecrow Princess: I have a suggestion to read instead of this.

I am utterly disappointed with this Lion Forge ROAR release.

An Italian import, I read the English translation of this Graphic Novel. I was initially drawn in by the plot description and atypical artwork. Unfortunately, The Scarecrow Princess has some inexcusable issues that block me from suggesting it to other readers.

The Scarecrow Princess (Federico Rossi Edrig)
160 pages
Lion Forge
ISBN-10: 1941302424
ISBN-13: 978-1941302422

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READ THIS, NOT THAT
So beyond this is a pretty negative review. I suggest you skip this book and read Nilah Magruder’s M.F.K. instead. While I have not yet read MFK, is on my short list of seemingly amazing work I need to prioritize.
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Fatal flaws, lets discuss the biggest of them. We wont even talk about the rest.

I was annoyed that the creators of this comic chose to so strongly sexualize the fourteen year old female protagonist. But it is more than just sexualization; It has a strong theme of methodical abuse:

**Fourteen year old female protagonist Morgan meets faceless male antagonist the King of Crows. The KoC dispatches Morgan’s mother and brother, removing her support base, leaving her vulnerable and alone in her home.

**The faceless King of Crows grabs Morgan, simply saying ‘gotcha’ before Morgan blacks out. She awakes in a strange bedroom/bed.

**Morgan starts wearing an additional layer of clothing, an oversized old coat, an unmistakable metaphor of protection to save her from the King.

**The King of Crows tells her all the trouble he has caused and the removal of her family is for her own good and because she ‘wanted it’

**Early teenage Morgan then, for NO REASON, goes home and masturbates for an 8 panel page.

**The King attempts to break Morgans will, causing her oversized protective coat to dissolve.

**Author inserts a random Lesbian joke/reference

**Morgan and the King of Crows have a battle in which they are both nude. We don’t know why, but they are. Mr Faceless shows his bare chest while Miss Fourteen shows all of her bathing suit areas several times. In the end, her protection backfires, the bad guy is released and promises to return.

**The stalker version of KoC has a conversation with Morgan.. shortly after, another Lesbian joke/reference

**After Morgan’s family is returned, she never tells them about the screwed up bullshit she has gone through, and goes to highschool the next week.

If the plotline had not been completely full of holes, perhaps there could be justification for some of these elements, but in its published state, there are no excuses. Nudity for example is warranted in a number of Graphic Novels, for example, in recently published works about eating disorders. Doubtful this work could be saved, it burnt my bridge already.

Disappointed.

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Disclosure: This Graphic Novel was supplied by the author or publisher for review purposes. The source of the media did not impact my viewpoint..

From the publisher:
Morrigan Moore has always been moody, but her new home is the worst. Her novelist mother has dragged her to the countryside, drawn by the lost myth of the King of Crows, a dark figure of theft and deceit, and the Scarecrow Prince, the only one who can stand against him. When Morrigan finds herself swept up in the legend, she'll have no choice but to take on the Scarecrow Prince's mantel, and to stand and fight. For her town, her family, and her own future. This lushly drawn graphic novel will pull you into its sinister secrets and not let go till the final page. For fans of Coraline and Over the Garden Wall.

My thoughts:

The publishers say that this book is similar to Gaiman's Coraline, and I agree that like Coraline, this graphic novel uses the drawings to set the mood of the book. This story is downright spooky and perfect for the Halloween season. I can feel the cold coming off the pages. In addition, if you have never seen Hitchcock's classic movie The Birds in black and white, watch it so you know what I mean when I say that the crows felt claustrophobic and nightmarish.

I am not sure if the final version will be in color. My advanced copy was in black and white and I think that made this even more creepy. I used to love watching horror movies because they take you to the brink of wanting to look away when you hear the music. Well, even without the "music" in this novel I found myself speeding up and wanting to look away because I knew what was coming but I wanted to speed forward anyway and then I could not shut my eyes fast enough. This was fun spooky and young readers will enjoy it.

Well, the drawing style is intentionally awful - just super duper ugly... but I can live with that on account of one really awesomely grotesque piece of imagery that managed to be thrown in... you'll know it when you see it.
What I think was REALLY unnecessary was the over-sexualizing of the FOURTEEN YEAR OLD protagonist. Yes, I know this is set in the UK and there are different ideas there of what is age-appropriate material, but do we really need to see a 14 year old masturbate? Do we really need a bad guy to spy on her while she does it? It's just icky no matter where it's happening - ESPECIALLY when it is happening in a graphic novel that is likely to appeal to kids around age 11 or so.

I looked for this on NetGalley at the recommendation of someone close to me who had seen it somewhere and thought it might be interesting. Luckily it was on NetGalley as a Read Now option, so here we are. With the line "for fans of Coraline..." in the synopsis, I thought it might be interesting enough. That's one of my favorite books and movies, after all.

Morrigan is, right off the bat, described as "always moody" in the synopsis. From what I could tell, however, she acted like a teenager that had had her life disrupted in what she thought was an unfair way: because of the job of her mother and bother, novelists that chase myths and legends. While her snark toward the new landlady was a bit biting and obviously rude, I understand where she was coming from and rather felt like she was being painted as a brat when she was simple reacting as one would expect her to have in such a situation. That doesn't mean I liked her, as such, but I understood her bratty-ness.

Sophie and Edgar Moore were an odd pair of characters. I didn't get much of a sense of personality from them, besides that of absentminded authors. What I'm still wondering about it, why mother and brother? There wasn't enough detail about them to flesh them out and see them as such. To be honest, without the brief mention of his being her brother at the beginning, I would have thought Edgar was her father. He and their mother came off as absentminded author parents, really, rather than a brother working with his mum. Plus the language used to talk about them, "your folks", is most often used for parental figures.

The King of Crows was by far the creepiest, most perverted character in the book. I disliked his mannerisms, his way of speaking; for a thousands year old creature, he sounded like an entitled modern man full of arrogance. I hated him when he started making sexual advances toward Morrigan, our fourteen year old heroine, and nothing is said in the text about it. He's a bad guy because he took her parents, not because he's trying to seduce her or because he made a comment about a four panel page scene earlier in the book when, after escaping from his kingdom, she pleasured herself. What. The. Hell. was that about??

The final battle between Morrigan and the Crow King further feeds into this creepiness because both characters are completely naked at the end. The Crow King has his lower half covered by crows/shadows, but Morrigan? The child in this book? Not a stitch, nothing. It was a rude scene change in the narrative and added nothing that I could see. If the mantle of the Scarecrow turning evil and needing to be stripped away was so important, I feel like the author could easily have managed this without parading Morrigan around like he did. It made a read that was somewhat dull into one that was downright uncomfortable.

The book is touted as being for fans of Coraline and I can almost see that, but I think it shared a bit too many similarities with Coraline to really stand out as a unique work of fiction that might appeal to fans of both books. If you didn't use names or the details about the crows, I think people might not be able to tell the difference very well and that seems a problem for me because this could have been wonderful. The idea of a Crow King haunting a small English town sounds eerie and mythical. It was a bit sad that it didn't quite reach that level for me.

The art seemed rather rough around the edges, like static on a television. Then, the coloring. It was quite flat and didn't seem to flesh out the story. It was like filling out a coloring book page with one colored pencil or paint pen and not doing much in the way of shading or layering.

Ultimately, even if the art had been of a higher quality, I don't think I could rate this higher because of the story and gratuitous nudity.

It will not let me download this story on my phone so I cannot review this.. I am sorry

I really liked the story. The art was interesting but for a book that has been suggested to younger children there were some inappropriate themes. The young girl of fourteen and the crow prince were naked towards the end which didn't seem appropriate. Also there was some sexual innuendo that didn't sit well with me.

I expected to like this, but was disappointed. Morrigan is very difficult to like from the start, and I spent most of the book wishing it followed Alma instead.. The promised spooky plot is ultimately unsatisfying, and it ends in a deeply uncomfortable scene that features the young teen hero naked over multiple pages (and the ageless villain as well, without any apparent reason). I regretted deciding to finish this during a break at work.

I do love the way the King of Crows is drawn, but unfortunately that’s all I liked about this book.

Good content but not something that I could easily get into.

I have certain preferences when it comes to artwork, so this first part is very subjective. I thought it was okay, but not always to my taste. I feel some of the artistic choices are/will be controversial such as showing the main character's breast and the villain's penis. That scene hit me wrong, but I can come back to that later.

The characters were pretty 'meh.' Morrigan is a brat, who I thought acted more like a 9 year old than a 14 year old. Her emotions seem to flip-flop, her decisions make little sense, and shes pretty rude. Her family isn't given time to develop, so the only other substantial characters are The King of the Crows and her new 'friend' (which how did that happen?). The friend (sorry can't remember her name), is nice and still feels like part of the background while King Crow actually feels like a more complex character. In the first part, he was actually my favorite character until he got... creepy.... in a 'omg did an adult really just say that to a teenager?' way.

The story.... *shrugs* to be honest, it is pretty straightforward, although our villain even brings up the question of "why are you doing this?!" which our heroine has no answer to. I also thought it was a bit fast-paced and somewhat choppy -- I can forgive this thought because I understand not all comics can flow like manga. The ending is a bit of a twist, although it made me wonder what the point of this all was or if it is open to a sequel. All in all, I was still interested in the story.

Biggest Problem
Based off of everything above, I would have given the book 3 stars. So, why 2? This book made me feel quite uncomfortable. There is a scene where Morrigan masturbates... and it is at a very weird, unexpected time -- literally comes out of nowhere. It also seemed totally unneeded to the story and did nothing to show growth or layers to Morrigan. At first I had myself convinced, I couldn't have seen what I thought I saw, UNTIL THE KING OF CROWS ACTUALLY MENTIONS IT TO HER AND THEN MAKES HER FEEL EMBARRASSED ABOUT IT.
This is the start of how the villain starts to feel like a sexual predator more than a guy just following his nature (the stealing food part). He is the villain, so why I think some of the message to 'Hey, don't be embarrassed to masturbate, it is totally normal' is totally fine, COMING FROM THE EVIL DUDE MAKES IT SOUND CREEPY. It gives it the wrong feeling.

So, unless I'm completely missing some symbolism or underlying message to the book the whole sexual part seemed totally unneeded and just done wrong.

This is not a book I would recommend, to anyone. If only because at this point I'm still trying to figure out the appeals of it? And while the heroine feels young enough to recommend this to middle schoolers, the actual content does not match that.

Weeks after reading it, I'm actually considering lowering my rating to 1 star....

OKay so....what did I just read? I grabbed this one because the description sounded really intriguing and also because it said it was for fans of Coraline and Over the Garden Wall (both of which I like quite a bit). This however is not anything like either of them (not to me anyway).

The main character is annoying, it was hard to care about her or identify with her.
And why the author felt it neccessary to have the main character (who is 14 BTW) and the villain both naked at the end of their final confrontation, I have no idea.

This was not for me. And I don't think it's for other fans of Coraline either.

This graphic novel is a perfect read for Halloween. It starts out like a Goosebumps story, a family moving to a small mysterious town with a loner child. It also reminded me of the Disney Channel show So Weird. Morrigan's brother and mother travel around the country researching local myths and then incorporating them into their books.

This is a chosen-one story with a few twists, meta jokes, and a bit of playfulness. It presents an interesting take on the dilemmas of being the chosen one. There is definitely moral grayness, which is always great in a spooky read.

There are also parts of this story that remind me of Labyrinth. It has that similar coming-of-age meets chosen-one vibes. And there's a tall dark, mysterious villain with sex appeal.

I enjoyed this graphic novel. The art pairs perfectly with the story. I give this book a 4/5.

In the style of a lot of the GNs coming out these days, this is a great one for fans of anything Molly Ostertag.

I want to thank NetGalley and The Lion Forge for letting me review this book. Unfortunately, this wasn't the book for me. I'm always thankful of getting the chance to review books and share my opinions honestly.
I don't think this was the book for me. I didn't like it. I didn't like the main character. She was very whiny, and just a brat. I didn't really love the art style. The coloring was pretty, but it just wasn't art I'm drawn to.
The plot of the story progressed very quick, almost too quick. It could have done with a little more development and build up.
I also wasn't a big fan of the dialogue. It didn't grip me, or really entertain me.
I don't think I got whatever point this story was trying to make. I just thought it was weird, confusing, and I didn't really like it. This review is just my thoughts and opinions. Don't let me stop you from reading this book if it sounds good to you. It's a super quick read. I'm thankful that I was given a chance to review it.
BOOKCITEMENT LEVEL 2/5
Not For Me.

I received a free electronic ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

I am not entirely certain how I feel about this book. The story was okay. In fact, there were some things I liked in spite of its drawbacks. The fourteen year old main character, Morrigan Moore, is unpleasant. She is unhappy with the way her mother and brother, writers, keep dragging her all over the place in search of local legends to turn into books. And she is not shy about taking it out on everybody.

In this case they have taken her to a small English town in search of The King of Crows and The Scarecrow Prince, his mortal enemy. As is so often the case in these books, the legend has more reality to it than could ever be believed by most people. The King of Crows takes a fancy to Morrigan and, to get her attention, kidnaps her mother and brother. Things escalate from there.

It comes as little surprise that Morrigan is chosen to be the current incarnation of The Scarecrow Prince--now Princess--with power over all the things of man. The battles begin. And again, things escalate from there.

There are some scenes that are less than comfortable since they include a fourteen year old girl. Maybe even a little creepy, and not in a good way. I thought those scenes took away from the story rather than add to it.

Overall it was an okay read.

I loved this story! I love the strong female heroine who has to save her town. And I loved the twist ending. What I didn’t like about this was the artwork. It wasn’t very clear and sometimes was hard to figure out what was going on.

I really liked this. It was a cute, moderately scary story about a girl finding her own strength.

Child nudity. A boring color palette. A bratty "heroine". No thanks...

Being 14 is hard. Having a mother and brother who are famous writers and who move you to a new town to write their book is harder. Being singled out by the Deceiver, the Thief, the Drinker of Eyes, the All-Devouring Black Cloud, AKA the King of Crows is hashtag the hardest.

Morrigan Moore has unwittingly been drawn into an epic and continuing battle between good and evil--the Scarecrow Prince versus the King of Crows. While the Scarecrow Prince protects Morrigan with his mantle, he isn't all good. He changes and controls her, makes her mean. In the end, the King of Crows is not so bad, and the Scarecrow Prince is not so good, but Morrigan is herself and in control.

Readers who love Neil Gaiman’s Coraline or Jim Campbell’s Over the Garden Wall will enjoy this adventure fantasy story.

I requested this from NetGalley because the blurb mentioned myths, a crow king and basically sounded like a modern day fairytale. The actual comic was a bit different.

The story starts when Morrigan, her mother, and her brother move to a small town. Morrigan is upset because this move was for her mother and brother's new project, and she reacts by acting like the 14-year-old girl she is. But when the crow king from the myth turns out to be true, Morrigan finds that she is the appointed scarecrow princess meant to stop him.

The first thing I didn't like was the drawing style. I realise this was on the cover and really is a personal thing, but it didn't grow on me at all. I suppose the rough style could be reminiscent of Morrigan's prickly character and the dark nature of a fairytale, but it just felt unfinished most of the time.

The second thing I didn't like was the pacing. I think this is actually the main reason why the book disappointed me. Everything was wrapped up in this one volume and that means things had to move at a quick pace. Morrigan must grow up, she must meet (and then quarrel with) friends, there must be a twist, etc. I suppose if this was spread over a few volumes, the story could have had enough room to breath, but as it is everything felt rushed.

And there is one more thing: the ending section of the story was weird. (Spoiler alert!) At the end of the book, after what felt like sexual talk from the crow king, Morrigan and the crow king have a heart-to-heart conversation (as much as two enemies can) while the two of them are completely naked.

Let me remind you that Morrigan is a 14-year-old girl and the crow king, while not explicitly given an age, appears to be an adult.

It feels like the more I think about the book, the more I dislike it. It's a real pity because the premise had a lot of promise and I think if the story was given more room to breathe (and remembered that the protagonist is a young girl), it could have been a great story. But as it, it's just disappointing.

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.