The story for this one intrigued me but I have to admit that it seemed to jump around more than I expected and in ways that really didn't work for me. I doubt that I'm the target audience so that may factor into it. The other thing that I really had a challenge with was the artwork. I thought from the cover that it would be a bit more whimsical and a little less dark, but the artwork was not just dark but not to my liking.

There are some interesting elements to the story and the mystery was interesting, although again things were a bit rough around the edges.

'Mae Vol. 1' with story and art by Gene Ha is a graphic novel about a missing sister and what happens when she shows up again.

Mae's older sisten has been missing for a long time. One day, Mae's sister Abbie shows up with a story about hunting monsters that seem outlandish. Then the monsters show up and Mae and Abbie are on the run and Abbie's stories don't seem so crazy as they end up in the weird world that Abbie was in.

It's a pretty goofy romp with a cast of oddball characters. Abbie is a fun character, but I'm not sure why the book is called Mae. The art is also fun with all the various creatures.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Oni Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

The artwork was nice, however, the actual story fell flat. I will not be continuing with this story.

The artwork in this graphic novel is beautiful. The storyline is enjoyable as well. It has left me wanting more.
With the intriguing start of a missing sister returning after 7 years with take tails off Annette she has been, it pulled me in immediately.

Unfortunately, this graphic novel seemed like it was trying to be a lot cooler than it was. There were so many made up words and weird jargon that just didn't work. The story could have been a lot of fun, but there was way too much that was squeezed into a few pages, which made things feel jarring. I constantly felt like I was missing important information as I was reading. I was really excited for this story and it was so disappointing.

Over the last couple of years I've been a bigger fan of graphic novels. I was hoping to find another that I would love but sadly it wasn't this one. Mae Vol 1 was hard to follow because I found it so boring I wish I didn't though.

I absolutely loved loved this graphic novel. There are references to other loves in Nerd culture and the art is very well done.

I kept hearing about Mae from multiple sources, so I knew I had to read it, but I clearly either didn't read the description beforehand or the given description did it no justice because I didn't expect to enjoy it, but ended up really liking it! Mae is a great Wizard of Oz-esque Steampunk romp that will appeal to a lot of audiences. I can definitely see this one getting a great TV adaptation in the future!

While I liked the fantasy element, how it gelled with the real-world aspect left me feeling mixed. Also, I wasn't so into the human character design/penciling and colors.

Well, bummer.

I kind of liked the art for Mae, and the storyline was ok, but BOY WAS I DISTRACTED BY THE FONT. It just didn't work for me at all. I realized that a lot of stuff was BOLD for EMPHASIS but I couldn't handle reading it. It was too much and totally distracted me from the story. I won't be reading any more volumes in this story, unfortunately. The art and characters weren't enough to keep me reading.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a really cute idea, but it was really slow to start for me. I wanted to get some of the action going! I did very much enjoy the dynamics of the story between the two sisters, however, the rest of the writing left me a bit flat. The art is good, stylistically cartoonish which accommodates a younger audience. Overall a decent read and I would recommend it to younger readers. Older teens and adults may find it lacking.

You can find many of the other books and graphic novel reviews on my blog, www.beforewegoblog.com

I don't think this story was meant for me. It had wonderful art and the idea was interesting. I just couldn't dive into it like with other stories. I can't quite put my finger on why, though. Perhaps I will wait a while to see if trying to read it again will change my opinion. In the meantime, I will happily recommend it to other people though! Thanks!

As a longtime fan and collector of comics and graphic novels, I was very excited to read this. I enjoyed the premise of the story and took great pleasure in the pop culture references to Doctor Who and Harry Potter.I did feel a bit let down by the depth of the characters. I felt that they could have been developed a bit more. However I am hopeful that I will see the characters continue to grow and gain depth as the story continues.

Mae and Abbie go on amazing adventures and kick ass and are magical and fierce and everything you could ever want in a fast-paced, fantasy teen graphic novel based around sisters! Readers are dropped right into the story, and things keep moving from there. Abbie is quirky and quick with a sword, while Mae is smart and new to a world that is not her previous reality. Add a talking animal side-kick, and it's like a weird fantasy/disney mash-up. I cannot wait to see where it goes and how the girls will continue to build their relationship after the years they lost.

I do love a good graphic novel. I've always loved comic books and graphic novels, so I'm always on the lookout for new stories to immerse myself into. I think one of the things that really draw myself into graphic novels is the artwork; I love poring over the illustrations.

Mae's beloved older sister, Abbie, has been missing for years. Mae has her theories about where Abbie might be. But nowhere in her wildest imagination do those theories encompass a fantasy world full of terrifying monsters, power-hungry nobles, and nefarious scientists. That is until Abbie suddenly reappears in Mae's world. And not alone.

I didn't really enjoy reading this. I thought that the first little bit of the story was so enticing. We're with Mae as her sister goes missing, and then we fast forward a bunch of years to when Mae is an adult. It did seem quite suspenseful, and then when Abbie suddenly appears... I don't know... The graphic novel just went downhill.

I'll admit, I did find the premise of the graphic novel interesting (otherwise I wouldn't have requested it off of Netgalley), but it just didn't capture my attention at all, and there were points throughout where I wanted to DNF it. We don't find anything out about the world where Abbie was Queen so things just don't connect with each other.

Another thing that I wasn't so keen on was the artwork. It was kind of creepy. It was quite realistic, but then it was cartoony... So it just became weird and creepy.

Normally, I love portal fantasy. Give me a good portal fantasy storyline any day, and I'm 90% sure that I'll love it. But not this story. It just seemed SO random. So I think that when volume two comes out, I won't be reading it. I think part of me is intrigued to see where Gene Ha goes with this story and whether she provides more background to the characters and the world, but unfortunately, this graphic novel wasn't for me.

Disclaimer: this book was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

I really try to give long thought out reviews for the ARCs I receive from Netgalley, but this one is very difficult to do so with. I was expecting so much more out of it based on the description and the art. I wasn't very impressed. The story was lackluster with only a few small rays of hope that kept me going till the end. I don't personally see myself continuing to read more about Mae, but I hope that there are people out there that will find her story entertaining enough to support the author. I give it a 2 out of 5.

3 Stars - It was overall an average read, with some hits and some misses.

Mae's sister Abbie disappeared about 7 years ago and no one knew where she went. She comes back out of the blue and explains where she's been: she found a doorway to another world and became an ass-kicking queen. Mae easily accepts this reason for her then-thirteen year old sister to have gone missing and return all these years later! Really?! My brother had better be ready to fill me on 7 years of crazy in chronological order with pie charts, graphs, and drawings, so I'm having trouble believing her ease of acceptance.

Turns out, some beings from this other world followed Abbie back through the portal to our world and kidnap their father. So, back into this other world Abbie goes, this time with her sister along for the ride. It is was fun to see the mix of humans, human-like creatures, and animal beings, especially when we meet Kvido, an adorable little red panda being, and honestly, my favorite part of the book. However, we don't really get much backstory on anything. Each comic within this collection feels like an excerpt of a larger story. I feel like the initial plan of re-entering this real was to save dad, but the rescue mission goes a bit off the rails. Also making it difficult to get into the story is the use of Czech names & phrases. It is such a departure from English that it is hard to pronounce the words and names and if there is any play on words there, it was lost on me. (Further research tells me this was a Kickstarter and probably heavily backed by the people of the Czech Republic, explaining the choice.) Yes, it's neat seeing humans, animals, pirates, and zombies, but it all felt like pieces of a larger world that I wasn't familiar with. This volume of Mae leaves lots of unanswered questions, like where did Abbie learn to fight? At 13, did she enter this magical, alternate world and just know or was she trained? Who is that Robotic Mount Rushmore being in the grand scheme of things? How is this realm situated and who are power players? I need more world building.

After the collection of comics, my edition has a few other comics for historical reference. Drawn in a different style, we see something that happened to Mae, but it isn't clear if it is in the past, present, or future. Another is how Mae and Dahlia became friends, again in a bit of a different style. We also get a look at one of Abbie's adventures during her early time in this other world. To cap it off we get some character drawings in various styles, notes on the characters, their dress, and the color scheme, and finally a dictionary for the phrases. (It's nice to have it there, but it's harder to notice when reading an ebook.) These added items, though also scattered, were actually more enjoyable than parts of the actual story. Exposition is important and ultimately, that was the bit that was lacking for me.

The artwork on the cover looked computer generated, but nice. For the most part, the artwork inside was also in that same style. People, places, and things were all clearly decipherable, it just wasn't the best looking art. It felt like it had been designed on the computer about 13 years ago. I did like the various beings we meet along the way and "costume changes", especially from Abbie. How many other young women wear an overcoat from the Revolutionary War?! I hope the future books flesh out the motivations and classes of the different people and animals.

Thanks to Kvido, I'll probably check out additional volumes of Mae, but I don't see myself spending money on these.

Thanks to NetGalley and Lion Forge for the chance to read this book. This review reflects my honest thoughts and was written voluntarily.

Gene Ha's Mae is a surprising dreamy journey to another reality. Two sisters, Mae and Abby meet after a long separation and try to locate their dad, kidnapped into another dimension. The story is original and exciting, and the illustrations are superb. I really enjoyed reading this graphic novel and learning to know its resourceful and fearless main characters.

In the end part of the book, there are lots of information on how the story was created, sketches of the characters from the development stage and drawings by other artists on their own styles of the characters. There is even a glossary, as many of the names in the book are based on Czech words.

All in all a wonderful reading experience. I'm looking forward to read volume 2...

In prep for my Graphic Novel Read-a-thon in July I picked up a bunch of graphic novels from NetGalley because they’re available to download then and there rather than requesting and waiting.

I really do love utilising that part of the site.

The synopsis and active cover are what drew me into picking this one up, however I actually ended up adding this to my DNF pile.

I made my way through 53% of this book so I had made decent progress.

What did work for me was the story! It seemed to hold a lot of potential and it had some Wizard of Oz vibes to it too. (A young girl goes missing and ends up ruling a different place, only to return home and the other world fall apart).

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However what didn’t work for me was the art.Its very clunky and styalised. Almost looks like it came from a video game? I found it very off putting to get through. I’m looking back at these screen captures now like yeah in small dosages its not so bad but when I was actively trying to read the whole thing? Nope, it wasn’t working for me at all.There is however areas in which it worked and for me it was the title pages.

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I mean look at how sweet and precious this looks?!

I have a feeling its the colour that helps tone it down and make it more accessable perhaps?

Anyway, not a book for me …but maybe its for you.

I'm always looking for books that are engaging or educating or hopefully both for YA students. Call this one "engaging." Doubly so for magnificent art.