Beautiful art, and a more philosophical story that what's usually aimed at younger readers. It doesn't provide any easy answers, and encourages reflection.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. I think this book will resonate with younger kids and less with adults. Lots of unuseful stuff and bizarre ending.

Big exposition dump, followed by a story that is rather overdone, and an ending where nothing has really happened... on purpose. Kids will read it.

Love this little world-building adventure! The characters are fun and the story is exciting. Can't wait to see more installments.

Thanks NetGalley for this ARC, in exchange for an honest review. Once you get past the sheer beauty of this novel, there is an equally beautiful and heroic story of a cursed girl, who meets a few friends on a sweet journey of courage, persistence, and old fashion exploration. It’s a story that we’ve all heard but never truly gets old. Lessons are learned, good times were shared, it may not be the answer they wanted but it was the answer they needed. Well done Dahm!

It definitely gives you a lot to think about. A girl, cursed because of a monster outside of her control, and the friends she picks up along the way. All of them want to find the monster. To kill it? To see it? To just get some answers?

This was very enjoyable and would be a good read for older kids, mainly because it's very...well, it doesn't spell everything out for the reader and leaves a lot of room for thinking. Which is nice.

I especially liked the world of nothing but oceans and islands, each bit of land with its own culture and population.

A very cute graphic novel. The characters and storyline were simple enough that upper elementary students could follow and connect with as they read.

Sola lives as an outcast within her small community on an island. She is cursed - that's what everyone says - because a Monster came to the Island when Sola was a child; everyone around her ran, but Sola alone stood before it, and it reached out to her. The destruction left in the monster's wake, coupled with its interest in Sola sealed it: the rest of the Island branded her. As Sola reaches adolescence, she's curious: what drew the Monster to her? Tired of living with everyone's fear, and wanting answers, Sola leaves the island, taking to the open water. As she travels, she discovers that the Island isn't alone: there are new lands and people to meet.


Island Book is Sola's story. A quietly strong female protagonist, she faces adversity at home and has a curious streak that contributes to her own community's distrust and fear of her. The plot meanders on a bit in spots, but is mostly a solid story about courage and curiosity; about friendship and working together, and about opening oneself up to new ideas and experiences. The characters are humanoid but not human; the artwork is bright and the nature is beautifully depicted.


The first in a new series, Island Book is a good choice for middle grade book discussion groups, too. Ask kids if they've ever felt like Sola, unable to change someone's mind or looked down on because of their age. Does Sola do the right thing by going off on her own? Would Sola's community encourage relationships with other beings?


There's a soundtrack for Island Book available, along with two books of development artwork, through author Evan Dahm's website. There's a great review by the AV Club here.

What did I just read? No seriously, I don’t know.

The art style is cute, but I HAVE. NO. CLUE. WHAT. I. JUST. READ.

Is it a book about a journey? Facing your monsters? Finding friends from strange places? No clue. I’m kind of flabbergasted that after all that I have no answers to what I read. I don’t know if the villain is really a villain, what their motives were, or even what that ending was.

My apologies to Evan Dahm, but I don’t know what to say?

I once said that If you’re newer to the alternative scene for comics, like myself, Evan Dahm's Riceboy is perhaps one of the industry’s best-kept secrets and certainly one of the best books to take a chance on. As a veteran of the indie comics scene more and more of his past work is surfacing to those who previously only read mainstream comic book and titles. And newer work of his is finding new audiences today. <em>Island Book</em> fits into that second category and I've glad to have read it.

This graphic novel for the middle school crowd, Island Book features a main character by the name of Sola. She’s different in a way that’s mostly frowned upon, is ever curious about the outside world and how society is structured. Because of this, the folks label her as cursed, the other kids won’t play with her and think her hobbies like map making are stranger. A creature known simply as The Monster came to their island. Young Sola stood transfixed, unafraid and alone while others fled in fear. Ever since then, she’s been treated as an outcast and it soon serves as a cataylst for her to embark on a journey to face the unknown.


Since this graphic novel is geared more to the younger reader, I appreciate him explicitly making the main character a child and a girl at that. Too often I read epic tales for this age group and sincerely wish more young women, especially girls were the heroes, the leaders, the captain in the stories. Young Sola sets off on a quest to uncover the unknown, to get answers to her questions and she ends up accomplishing so much. She treks across the waters with a bravery not seen in others twice her age nor twice her size. She assembles a crew, makes repairs on the fly, makes daring escapes, encourages others to step out of ther comfort zone. There are times when she’s tearful and seemingly regretful, and scared and terribly upset—defending herself when trapped against might and arrogance.

Dahm thrives in creating worlds and all many of creatures and beings of all shapes and sizes that speak to a vivid imagination. His poetically unique art style features some towering structures and some far off things on and off the sea that fit some perfectly into the fantasy genre. In his world building, across pages we are granted glimpses of the sea, of the waves page after page and the glimpses of the The Monster, ever elusive. Some of my favorite visuals include panels of Sola coming into conflict with those who are older, supposedly wiser who settle into authority figures territory. Sola’s determined and much smaller defiance in opposed to their imposing figures is a contrast to see and soak in.


Yet even though this is a children’s book, adults can certainly enjoy this read. After reading Riceboy and looking at Vattu, I feel Dahm has a gift for crafting stories that are earmarked for the strange and wonderful benchmarks. Island Book doesn’t spoonfeed you the story, you, the reader can make up your own mind of the creatures that become Sola’s allies. Is Hinder, at first glance a big fearful oaf or does he gain your respect at the end with seeing the journey through? Is Wick gifted with the flowery language a distraction or he is great addition to the crew for being Hinder’s foil?

I think what is the most provoking theme of the entire book is <strong>choice</strong>. Making up your mind to go through with a plan even if it’s only a working one. Choosing to stand up and do the thing that you’ve been afraid nearly your whole life of doing. Making a deliberate decision to step away from the crowd, your community, what echoes of the land that you’ve been strictly pushed to in order to choose something better or worse, set on making your own stories. And even struggling to accept the choices that others make, even if they know that they’ll sink without dry land under their feet afterwards.

Island Book ventures into a superb narrative that can stand on its own that reminds us of how valuable team work is, no one can do it alone, of friendships found and held fast on to as we’re redefining who we are. This graphic novel dives into who you become when facing what you’ve been chasing—challenging the norm and what’s been set in stone by others and choosing your destiny. This is a book that in which characters wrestle with fear, complacency and being lost in more than one way.

Young Sola, with her small stature who had never left her green island before, saw the world beyond and came back alive with some answers, with knowledge that she owed no one. Island Book is an unconventional look in book form of facing the unknown and coming back with the understanding that not everything in the world is to be understood or solved or conquered and accepting that.

Rating: 4

The graphic novel Island Book by Evan Dahm was a quick and interesting read. The story follows Sola who grew up as an outcast due to being told she was cursed. One day when the Monster appeared on their island everyone ran away except for Sola. Growing up she always thought she was different and wanting to change that she faces her fear and leaves the island not knowing what to expect. On her way, she learns to take risks and pushes herself more than ever no matter how afraid she is. During her journey, she is finally able to find trust and loyalty in unexpected people and places. Honestly, I really enjoyed reading this graphic novel. The story felt original and the artwork complimented it well. I loved that many of the scenes were wordless because the illustrations were strong enough to stand on their own. The story started out strong but towards the middle I did find myself wondering where it was going. Unfortunately, the ending felt rushed and a little anticlimactic but I still really enjoyed the story. I will definitely be adding this into our collection at the library. The message being told in this story is an important one that anyone can benefit from.


Should you read Island Book?

Yes, it is definitely worth the read. The illustrations are gorgeous and fit the storyline perfectly.

**Received an advanced copy through NetGalley in return for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. **

I very much enjoyed this little book. It is particularly interesting as a potential book for use with young adults for prompting discussion.

I've been a fan of Dahm's work for many years now and count "Rice Boy" as one of my favorite books/graphic novels ever, so I jumped at the chance to read an ARC of his latest work.

I didn't know it was a middle grade book at first, and while it didn't bug me that it was, it definitely meant that the surrealness of Dahm's usual works was toned down. Where the surreal illustrations and pop-surreal color schemes dominant Dahm's webcomics, the surreal architecture wasn't there (aside from some Kay Sage inspired architecture on the White Island) and the color palettes were more muted. The color-washing of the background/sky boxes though were still inherently symbolic and thematic with the worlds, which was nice. The artwork overall is also lovely in its own right, don't get me wrong! It's just not the style I was expecting.

The story itself was definitely on par with the standard questing tropes that Dahm's other works focus on, but with more of a purpose and moral this time. Sora has been "cursed" by the Monster and quests to go find it and learn why it singled her out. Along the way she falls in with a small group of misfits who are also seeking the Monster for their own reasons, and Sora visits islands she never knew existed before (I liked the pseudo-elemental themes of these).

While the moral of the story is two-fold, in my reading--Sora faces her fear/the unknown and returns wiser for doing so, while also learning that people can view fear/the unknown in different ways (fearing it, worshipping it, denying it, fighting it, accepting it)--the ending definitely was lackluster and anti-climactic. I can't really even spoil the ending, as it really just came to a head and then immediately cut to our crew members returning to their home islands. These bits did show that each character had taken their own lessons from their journey, but it still didn't explain the overarching reason why the Monster existed in the first place, what it was, or why Sora was singled out.

It definitely felt more like the first book in a series (a la "Amulet"), setting up worlds and characters for further exploration; however, I haven't seen anything mentioned about this being a series.

It was a great read, and considering the target audience, has some great themes to it. However, the ending just fell too flat for me to enjoy it, and I was expecting the heavily surreal style that makes Dahm's other works so awesome.

Beautiful, strange, and perfect.

Told in the narrative style of a fairytale and dreamlike artwork, this was a fantastic little story I picked up on my lunch break and couldn't put down until I finished. While I felt like the story resolution could have been developed and laid out a tad bit clearer, it was still a lovely read from start to finish.

Would definitely recommend for fans of The Dark Crystal, Fraggle Rock, graphic novels in general, and anything weird and off beat.

While I didn't hate Island Book, I also didn't enjoy it. It felt like so much more could have been done with the story, but at the same time with the book wrapped up in one volume, it felt much too long. The art is fine, I just felt like something was missing.

After seeing the beautiful cover, I was excited to read this book. Unfortunately, it was a disappointing read. The story was boring and the plot was confusing. I did not understand the anti-climatic ending. Character development may have made the story more enjoyable and more meaningful.

This kicks off with a whole lot of telling and backstory, which is disappointing, but still, I was interested in where this might go. Somewhere around panel 40, this becomes more interesting. Luckily, with this simple format, you can progress to that panel quickly, so just hang in there through the rocky start.

The artwork is very simple and clean with mostly muted colors that I really enjoyed. It gives everything a nice, moody feel. There’s actually a lot of visual depth in the scenes, and you can feel the action and motion in the drawings, especially in terms of the movement of boats and water. Honestly, the artwork is probably my favorite things about this one.

In the first 40 panels, most of the characters look identical, so that is confusing. However, the side characters from the first world don’t really seem to have names, personalities, or much of a purpose, other than to interact with Sola, the MC, so once you figure out which one is Sola, the scenes start to make more sense.

I think that the simple format and storytelling is good for the intended audience, overall. This just completely lacks character development and clarity in the world building, other than what you can guess at from what you see in the artwork. It basically becomes a long journey with multiple stops to add new underdeveloped side characters. The dialogue tends to be a bit vague and often awkward or cheesy. It doesn’t always move the story forward effectively. I have to confess that I liked the wordless panels the best.

The end is pretty confusing, anticlimactic, and disappointing. You don’t get any true answers, and if it’s trying to express a deeper message, the younger intended audience isn’t going to get it. I’m 38, and read a lot, and I was completely unconvinced of any deeper meaning or message. I felt like I just went on a long, useless journey. Sure, it was interesting, when I thought it was building to something, but once I realized there wasn’t going to be any true plot development or resolution, I just had to force myself through to the last panel.

Still, despite these many concerns with the format and storytelling, something is compelling about this one. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, other than I enjoyed the otherworldly quality and adventure of it. It’s best for young readers who are new to graphic novels, and it likely won’t have as much appeal to older graphic novel fans who like to read across age categories, particularly teens and adults, as we tend to expect a more solid storyline and some actual character development.

A very interesting story that was not able to sustain my attention for the totality of the narrative. An admirable attempt.

Island Book looked like it would be a very sweet and fantastical read, but instead, I got an art style I didn't enjoy, a narrative voice I found boring and slow, and a plot that meandered before firmly burying itself in the end. I have no idea what has happened, or what the purpose of this graphic novel was. I suppose it's one of those stories where you're meant to focus on the journey and not the destination, but the journey really wasn't saying much, either.

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I really enjoyed this one. Sola lives on an island that gets attacked by a mysterious monster who appears to be after only her...so she sets off on a voyage alone across the sea to find the monster and find out why it wants her. Along the way she runs into other islands - each unique in topography and peoples, and it was fascinating to me to see how each new group viewed the monster (with awe, with disbelief, with anger and pitchforks, etc.) I saw other reviews that were disappointed in the ending because we (and Sola) never gets the answers to her questions of what was the monster and why was it after her, but I liked it - because that's just how life is sometimes, isn't it? That the way we viewed things weren't how they turned out to be, and some things just don't have explainable answers. The beauty was really in the journey in this book and Sola learned multitudes along the way.