Cover Image: Trent : A Light Tragedy with Music

Trent : A Light Tragedy with Music

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This book is definitely not for everyone. The humor is very dark and deals with a death of a child. I can see how some will be deeply, deeply disturbed by this. However, if you take it on a deeper level it shows how scary fatherhood can be. It is an interesting premise, but I would proceed with caution.

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This book is way too dark humor, maybe not even humor... The father's acts made me sick. Art style was not bad. It is usually in monochrome, but in the musical scenes the colors brighten the scene.

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I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Maybe my idea of comedy isn’t dark enough for this. This was deeply disturbing and I’m not sure how I finished it. The death of a child is a seriously emotional and painful thing to handle and for the parents who have gone through this experience, this kind of book is a slap in the face and a total mockery of their pain and suffering.

1 Star only because 0 isn’t an option.

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"Light tragedy with music" is a fairly apt description of Trent. Bob and Doris bring home a new baby, only to find that it dies rather quickly after arriving home - and the two of them choose to cope with this development by turning to musical theater.
The book comes with a downloadable soundtrack, which I missed, but it works okay on its own - it is definitely for folks with a dark, offbeat sense of humor. It's a little shaky as a standalone graphic novel, but I'm guessing that with the accompanying soundtrack it works much better.

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I didn't know what to expect from this, nor if I'd like it - but I certainly did. A strangely life-affirming tale of a doofus who thinks his son is going to be still-born, and who then lets him freeze to death in the street on one cold winter's stroll. Yes, to any female point of view he's bound to be a callous, cruel arsehole, but I could relate to the alien-ness of fatherhood, his insecurity with the two of them becoming a three. So when he sees a happy family for once, and at last absorbs the common features passed down to his son, it's all positive, even if the little wriggler is worm-food. This is certainly not just a book with a wicked streak, it does have something to say, should you be prepared to let it. I didn't bother to click through to the songs - I'm here for the book, but I thought the monochrome artwork bursting into colour when the music struck up was a very nice touch among many in the design. All told, a firm success. Four and a half stars.

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This is not a good book. In all honesty, I was not able to finish it. The story is terrible--a couple is expecting a baby, and the emotionally detached husband can barely bring himself to care about his impending fatherhood. When the baby is born, his apathy ends up leading to the child's death (which causes no remorse--his reaction is reminiscent of one breaking a cheap lamp or forgetting to pick up milk, as opposed to murdering his only child).

The monotone panels are broken up periodically by colorful stretches popping with emotion and accompanied by musical lyrics--it appears that the graphic novel was adapted from a stage musical. Perhaps the gruesome premise is funnier when set to music, but as far as I could tell, this story did not need to be told again.

Would not recommend.

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I can't finish this book. It's in such bad taste that I find it disturbing. It's especially tough for me because my wife and I lost a baby.

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No.

Not my type of humor. I could tell from the first page that I would not like it when a husband was telling a wife that he could not feel the baby kick, and thought he was dead, and didn't care if he was dead. The pain this would put a pregnant woman through is beyond anything I could explain. Any mother who reads this, or any parent that has been involved in their child's life from the beginning would cringe at this sort of talk.

Later, not a spoiler because it is mentioned in the description of this book, the baby dies because the husband is foolish.

There is nothing, nothing funny about a baby dying, and then making fun of the situation by tossing the body in the air, like a football.

I guess this is a form of dark humor that works for others, as I see this book has gotten four and five stars.

This was apparently a comedy sketch, before it became a graphic novel. And according to the afterward, there is a message in the story, but to me, Bob, the father, was loathsome all the way through, so if there is redemption, I wasn't going to give it to him.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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