Absolutely gorgeously illustrated but I feel like it would be been so much better, structurally, without the words. It would serve it's purpose more as a silent book.

After having read Amélie Fléchais's The Little Red Wolf back in September, I was very excited seeing another of her books being available. The artwork, like in her previous work, was absolutely stunning - I just adore watercolour illustrations and Amélie seems to be making a wonderful use of them. What was different in this book, though, was that the art style alternated between the beautiful watercolour illustrations I so admire and black-and-white drawings which resembled the Japanese manga aesthetic.

The story was quite simple - three boys get lost in a forest in which various magical creatures lurk (some of them very reminiscent of Studio Ghibli's magical creatures and definitely folklore-inspired). The book begins with the story of a couple which aids in somehow understanding the events that unfold a little later on, but overall the story was a little confusing and needed a bit more polishing in my opinion. The ending seemed very rushed and the story of the couple was never resolved. In the end the reader is left wondering whether those adventures the three boys embarked upon were real or a mere spark of their imagination.

While the story left some loose ends, the true star of the book for me is definitely the art. I could stay and stare at those illustrations for the longest time and I would still be in awe. I think I'm starting to find a new favourite illustrator and I will certainly be on the lookout for more of Amélie's work.

A BIG Thank You to NetGalley and Lion Forge for providing me a copy of “The Lost Path” by Amélie Fléchais in exchange for my honest review.

This book started out great! We got a backstory of a cursed forest, and saw three adventurers accidentally set into the forest while playing treasure hunt. I was hooked to the plot after reading the first few pages, and felt it had so much potential. Each of the 3 main characters have their own charm and personality, and I kept wondering how they are going to get involved in whatever was happening in the forest. Although the story got strange and vague at times, I felt the weirdness added to the charm of the plot. However, after finishing the book, I was disappointed. I had high expectations for this to be something great, but there are a lot of things unexplained, and just left me hanging in the end. The three characters also turned out to be just onlookers and weren’t much involved in what was happening in the forest. 

The illustrations on the other hand were a wonderful treat. I really liked the idea of the images being colored when the atmosphere shifts in the story. While the colored illustrations are breathtaking, the black and white ones are rough around the edges. I especially found the black and white ones to be confusing towards the climax of the book, as a lot of things happened suddenly, and some of the characters started looking alike, so it is hard to follow what is happening.  However, the details drawn in each frame is definitely something to stop and admire. It is obvious that Amélie has spent a lot of time trying to put her style in each page, and I am definitely curious to pick up one of her other works to see how good it is. 

I am giving “the Lost Path” a 3.5 star rating, 2 for the surreal images, and 1 for the story. I would have given this book a higher rating if I knew it was a first in the series, hoping to come back to find out the continuation to the characters in the forest. However, from what I can see online, I don’t think it is the case, as the book was released in French in 2013 itself and doesn’t have any sequels to it. I do hope the author changes her mind in the future and decides to have a sequel published with these characters.

I want to LIVE in this art. This is some of the most beautiful illustration I've ever seen. And that very fact hits you even from the cover of the book. The use of color, space, and movement are sublime. Every new panel brings something new to look at and I found myself going back over pages and zooming in to take in all the tiny and exquisite little details hidden in this world. If a kid is hesitant to read, this will work like a charm. I can't imagine anyone being able to resist this art! Its not reading heavy, which works in its favor as just the art alone tells the story very well, and the plot is one that any kid with an adventurous spirit will absolutely love.

I'm hoping against hope that the author or publisher will be producing prints of some of this art! I would nearly wallpaper my walls with it if I could.

Beautiful artwork and a great storyline. A lot of fun.

The Lost Path surely had potential! I really enjoy comics where kids go wandering in a spooky environment and in this one we have three boys. They are on Camp Happiness and have a map that supposedly leads them to treasure and the comic is basically their journey. It would help if they knew how to read the map though and the forest is a magical and ghostly place where monsters live and follow everything. The whole camp part isn't well explained and it takes time to understand why the boys are in the forest even. The beginning could've been smoother. The story about the couple in the forest was awesome though and lay the basis for the spookiness well, but our boys's story now lacks. It was awesome how the art varies at times, like when the boys enter the black forest, suddenly the art is black-and-white too. I didn't really get the hat though. Was it the crown or not and why was a dead moose wearing it?

The art is beautiful and the colors are magnificent. The whole thing is very artsy, but in a good way and it doesn't feel superimposed. The structure is also good, although the plot is lacking and the end could've taken more pages, since now it's cut short. The kids look wonderful and the wonky art works so well and reminds me of Cyril Pedrosa. The atmosphere is surely magical! Thus the lacking plot feels heavier than it perhaps is, since otherwise The Lost Path is wonderful and it could've been so much better if the story was balanced.

ARC copy WIP with BW illustrations for about 1/2 of the book...Extremely beautiful-surreal illustrations with a out worldly adventure although wished the conflict between the two spirits involved the child protagonists. It felt like they were bystanders in the general conflict narrative.

This book is beautifully crafted but I found the story line a little hard to follow at times. The weirdness is part of the appeal but it's almost a little bit too weird. The characters aren't properly fleshed out and events start but we never see what happens or any kind of conclusion before the story moves on. I'm not sure if this book is still unfinished and that is why there was black and white illustrations interspersed with the coloured ones but I did not enjoy the black and white sections and found the detail somewhat lacking leaving me confused about what was going on in some places. The idea behind this book is a good one but the execution delivers a confusing, incoherent story with no characters well enough established to care about. It was not an unpleasant read but certainly not a favourite. I look forward to seeing more from the author in the future.

I thought the illustration in this book were wonderful. I loved the altered perspective and how the dark backgrounds really lifted the image off the page. I also didn't get the full book with lots of blank pages which made the story impossible to follow. However I can say that I disliked the speech bubbles and what dialogue I could read was clumsy and disjointed. Maybe this is because it was a translation from French? The font used was also hard and didn't fit with the beautiful pictues. I would have liked the story to have been separate from the pictures with maybe some key words added to the pictures in a more sympathetic font. It wasn't clear to me what age group this was aimed at?

I picked up an ARC of this, because I enjoyed "The Little Red Wolf" (with some reservations for some kiddos), and liked the art.

Amelie Flechais is obviously a very talented artist. The cover for this one is gorgeous.  The story, while not particularly original for a Children's story, sounds full of promise and potential for both interesting and imaginative story-telling and artwork.

Unfortunately this one just didn't work for me.  The story, three boys taking a short-cut through the woods and getting lost, running into strange creatures and a few perils, lacked cohesiveness and coherent flow.  I found it confusing, muddled and disjointed. 

Things happen, and but aren't really fleshed out, then the story moves on.  Leaving the reader to try to guess what's going on and try to fill in narrative gaps to try to make some logical sense of this story.

It also has a mix of both colored pictures and black and white pictures, which is a bit disappointing and gives this an unfinished look.  I'm sure that was an intentional choice, but I think it would have been better to go with all color, or all, or mostly, black and white.

Overall I found this a disappointment, but I will certainly give this author and talented artist another look if another book is forthcoming.

I received a free, expiring, copy from Netgalley.

Unfortunately I was unable to review this as several pages are blank. If this issue gets fixed please let me know so that I can read and review this as I am still interested in it.

First, I must say that the artwork in The Lost Path is absolutely beautiful. The story itself is a little strange, but it is certainly a plot that would capture a child's imagination. I also really loved that there was a reference to "Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions" because it's been years since I thought of that!