With thanks to Diamond Book Distributors and NetGalley for a free arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is a dark and atmospheric middle grade graphic novel about a brother and sister duo, Indira and Eliott. They live in a fantasy version of 19th century London, and the aesthetic is basically steampunk Dickens.

The artwork is very beautiful and actually was about 90% of the enjoyment for me in reading this book. Kudos to the illustrator, Suheb Zako.

The story is where this book falls down. It’s aimed at children so you might expect the plot to be straightforward and understandable but it really isn’t. Concepts and characters are introduced and dispensed with in the blink of an eye. Characters will help and betray each other and help each other again and it all just washes over you because none of them were built up. For a short book, there were also too many characters so they were all by necessity extremely shallow.

The idea of the factory with a mind of its own is interesting (a critique of unchecked capitalism perhaps? Industry is the monster?) but undeveloped. The concept of it choosing its next caretaker could have been fun and intriguing, but the author seemed to change his mind three or four times about what he was trying to do with it.

Overall, three stars but almost all of them are for the beautiful and atmospheric art.

The art for this was absolutely stunning. It was much darker than I expected. A factory that builds toys off the memories of children while corrupting the director and keeping everyone young. Peter Pan meets Willy Wonka

This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review.

The world in this book is beautiful and the plot is equally well written. I liked the colour pallet used.

The character design was new to me and I really enjoyed it. It felt like I was watching an animation hence, this book would make a really good animation if adapted.

The story is fast paced and focuses on family, love, redemption and it's perfect for Middle graders, and even Young adults.

Indira will do anything for her little brother. And that's what the Dreams Factory is counting on.

Drawn into the mysterious, deadly factory in search of little brother Eliott, Indira must make allies with accomplished liars and...no one else, really. She can't navigate this strange world on her own, but must also be constantly on her guard for the moment that an ally no longer has use for her.

The ending is strange, a bit ambiguous to me. Hopefully happy? But perhaps even open for a sequel.

I immediately clocked the artwork as done by someone on the team for Netflix's "Klaus," and it is in fact Suheb Zako, a character designer for the film! Klaus was impressive for the detail it achieved even with a full team, and now THIS book is impressive for what a single artist can do! Not an inch of any page is flat, every corner has detail. Phenomenal stuff.

Remarkably bloody for being marked as middle grade! No gaping wounds, but there's a few instances of blood gushing onto floors. If you're being selective with your child's reading, peek towards the back of the book and see how you feel.

While the art was gorgeous and the idea really rich and fun, I felt like the story overall was rushed. The illustrations were really aesthetically appealing and the colors did a really good job of echoing the general mood of the story. The story itself is set in the industrial revolution and was super steampunk-esque which is super up my alley and had me intrigued right away. Its also a mystery, which is extra fun in steampunk, and I loved the mystery reveal. The issue came in that when we hit major plot points, they happened really abruptly and often introduced new things without explaining them, which left me confused. A couple of times I also didn't really know who was who in the drawings because so many people were introduced at once and they all looked similar, or they weren't introduced and just suddenly appeared. Overall. I did enjoy this, it just felt rushed.

The artwork in this is stunning! The story was good and I enjoyed reading the unfolding of the tale. Things tied up neatly at the end.

Very pretty roundish illustrations, beautiful colours, for a young adult comic book set in an industrial era fantasy. There is nothing very new in the world or story, we see some well-oiled themes, but it should enchant teens and take them on quite a journey. Here we explore the brother-sister bond, the poor-rich dichotomy, the nature vs culture... and dangerous magic. The read is smooth and you will arrive at the end before you realise it. If you liked Compass South you should like this one too.

I enjoyed this graphic novel and the story line. Just a bit confused at the end. The artwork was beautiful.

this book was entertaining but it didn’t feel like it was one to remember. the magic and the world were well built but it was hard to follow the plot at some points as it just felt incredibly rushed and not explained thoroughly, especially the ending.

This manga was exquisitely drawn and the story was great. I found that certain scenes carried a depth of feeling that could have easily been missed had it not been showcased the way it was. No spoilers, other than to say it was awesome and I will definitely be watching for this author/illustrator in the future.

This was a very beautiful graphic novel both in art and story. The bond and exploration between siblings were interesting to see, especially with the setting. I do wish there was more backstory for almost all of the characters but overall I enjoyed it.

Indira like most young children during the Industrial Revolution works in a coal mine, never complaining even when her health begins to deteriorate. When her young brother tries taking her place and then goes missing, she is desperate to get Eliott back. While searching for her brother she discovers that more children have gone missing, and all roads point to the wealthy owner of the coal mine. Undeterred and guided by a mechanical bug, Indira sets out to rescue Eliott from the Dreams Factory. But what transpires inside may be more than she was bargaining for.

The artwork in this graphic novel was simultaneously soft and dream-like, all while holding an undeniable grit. It certainty helped with telling the story. I found myself relating with Indira's desperation to save her younger brother at all costs, as I also am an older sister to younger brothers. However, I found the storyline quite choppy and sometimes highly confusing. I am unsure if this is due to the book being originally written in French and maybe the translation needs more work. Or whether additional panels would help smooth out some of the troublesome spots. The confusion while reading is what prompted my lower rating, as I feel the generally storyline is interesting and the cliffhanger excellent.

I loved the description of this graphic novel and I really wanted to like it. Unfortunately, for me there were too many details and back stories left out. Where did the factory come from? Why does the factory only steal children? What happened when Indira became in charge of the factory?

Set in London 1892, the main character Indira is a child who works in the mines. From the beginning you can tell there is some dark hidden something lurking. Waiting to just make its move.

The graphics were gorgeous, I loved the art style. The graphic novel itself wasn't too complicated to read -- some graphic novels give me a headache but this one was fairly easy to follow.

And the story -- while it had its missing parts -- was engaging and held my interest.

I absolutely enjoyed this and I can't wait to add it to my library!

Interesting, but ultimately not successful enough, this graphic novel takes us to a right old snowy, Dickensian, nightmare. Of the family of three we start with, we have a brattish young boy and his older sister and their grandfather, and only the girl can work – in a mine. When a well-intentioned attempt at filling in for her brings the brat into play, we along with the characters discover the much darker world of the place, a factory that practically makes an automaton of you, and drains all your memories.

Giving a high-gloss variant on a manga style, there are one or two upskirting frames, of course, terrible action scenes throughout, and a quite unfortunately clumsy approach to the world-building; the city (London, allegedly, which makes the mind boggle even more) is supposed to be a chain of wonders upon wonders, but it doesn't feel like a coherent, logical place at all. Also, visually, for some reason a decision was made to never show the Cruella de Vil character in full, always zooming in on the back of her legs, her nape, or something else. Add in identical characters, bonkers jumps in peoples' motivations, a ridiculous amount of energy for people when it comes to duffing up the enemy when they've been on the breadline all their life, and more, and you have something that doesn't really deserve too much attention, unfortunately. At least this is the full thing in its 130+pp form, and not in two bits a la the original French.

Set in London 1892 Indira works in the mines. When her little brother goes missing she goes on a quest to find him. The art is beautiful. I love that you can really see what the characters are feeling on their faces. The story was entertaining. I really enjoyed the book.

4 stars

Creative Team:
Original story by Suheb Zako and Jerome Hamon
Written by Jerome Hamon
Art by Suheb Zako
Colors by Lena Sayaphoum
Translated by Jeremy Melloul

I read this book and the whole time kept thinking about how I really want to play a video game version of it. Especially the exploring the factory and the finals fights.

The illustrations in this book were incredible, visually it was stunning. I think that the setting and the tale were pretty original and as the story continued I was surprised at many of the plots developments. The characters were well developed. The ending makes me want to brush up on my French to read the next part.

My only critique is that the last 20 pages or so felt a little rushed. I read a lot of graphic novels so I was able to fill in the blanks as to how the sequence jumped around, but it could make it harder for some readers to fully understand.

While the art is absolutely stunning and successfully sets the tone, the story itself feels rushed and is very hard to follow. It feels like there are panels, even pages, missing from the novel, making it near impossible to grasp what the author wanted to convey. There is a sequel that could possibly fill in sone gaps, but this has not yet been translated into English.

The illustrations in this graphic novel are gorgeous. I felt like I was looking at cells from an epic animated movie. The story is about class and rebellion. The story did become difficult to follow in some places. It felt almost as if panels were missing that would have filled in the gaps. But still it was a good read, mostly because I adored the art!

Jerome Hamon's Dreams Factory is a well drawn steam-punk style tale that is somewhat reminiscent of the 1995 movie, City of Lost Children. Visually its nicely done, but it does feel rather "digital", which may not be to some readers tastes.

The story is nice, though in places choppy, and the characters are engaging and very cutely drawn.

It's a competently told tale, but lacks that "something" that would raise it to be a "must read". Perhaps this is due to a lacklustre translation (as this was originally - I think - a French release). Its very likable though, and it would probably not only be well received by a younger audience, but it should be very suitable for one.