I just could not get into this. The art style was definitely interesting but unfortunately none of the stories hooked me at all and I was racing to get the book finished as it just wasn’t my cup of tea!

The art style and the Kafkaesque aesthetic match quite well for most of the short stories. However, the first one was very hard to grasp in an e-copy since the alignment was wonky. Also, the short stories I have previously read in the original form seemed to be more enjoyable than the ones I read for the first time, which seems to be a 'me' problem. The 9 shorts consisted of Kafka's most popular novel and some of the more obscure ones.
Overall it was decent. You can check it out if you like Kafka's aesthetic along with equally depressing art form 3.5/5
Thanks to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for the ARC.

Kafka is a manga adaptation of nine Kafka short stories, translated into English. Containing famous works like 'The Metamorphosis' and 'In The Penal Colony' as well as a range of others, the book tells new versions of these stories, with a distinctive art style, brief text, and a translation that, as explained in an afterword by the translator, tries to balance between the German original and the Japanese translation that the original manga uses. This makes it a fascinating hybrid work that gives a different view of Kafka, pulling out visual details that you might not otherwise consider when reading the stories ('In The Penal Colony' is particularly effective for this). The version of 'The Metamorphosis' is likely to be a draw for people as it is Kafka's most famous story, and an afterword highlights the fact that Kafka resisted any pictorial depictions of the story's protagonist, which this book complies with in a fascinating way that makes you focus on what is around him and who the other characters are, rather than just on Samsa himself.

This is definitely a different way to view Kafka's works and it provides a great way to picture some of the weirdness of Kafka. I wouldn't normally read graphic reinterpretations of texts, but actually this one has shown me that they can bring new interpretations and readings, rather than just being a different format to read the same old story.

This was an interesting adaptation of several Kafka novels into manga. The art was not my style, but I appreciate what the artist wanted to do with it, and I think it suits Kafka's stories!

I like the art and I am a fan of Kafka but something seems missing in all the art for this book. All the settings look great but for the most part that's all your looking at. Very basic which may work for some people but I constantly found myself wanting more from it and not getting it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for my arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

This is a manga adaptation of 9 Kafka short stories. I am not really a Kafka fan having only read "The Metamorphosis" like once in my undergrad and this didn't really change that. I struggled a lot with the styles used in this adaptation and that made it difficult for me to really enjoy reading this. I also already don't like Kafka so this definitely was not for me.

If you like Kafka, I would definitely recommend this as the art styles ARE interesting, they just weren't my cup of tea.

I read a lot of manga but I haven’t read very many of these retelling type volumes before. It is however something I have been more interested in getting into. Seeing how someone envisions a novel or story via another medium sounds fascinating. When I saw this on Netgalley I had to snap it up. I admit that the only work of Kafka I had read before this was The Metamorphosis (and I greatly enjoyed it) but after reading this I’m definitely going to have to seek out more of his work.

Each of the stories included in this are very short and to the point. Seeing as how I’ve never read the other stories included I have no way to confirm this but seeing as how the version of The Metamorphosis included here is much shorter than the original book I would have to imagine that the other stories are shortened as well. I don’t think that this takes away from them however. With one exception (The Country Doctor) I still think the stories. were very well written and highly enjoyable. My favorites were The Metamorphosis, The Vulture, The Concerns of a Patriarch, and The Bucket Rider. Least favorite was the before mentioned The Country Doctor (confusing, not entirely sure what even happened in the story).

The art in this was absolutely beautiful. I really think it added to the story. Each panel was very well drawn and it could be fascinatingly intricate. I appreciate that the artist that drew for The Metamorphosis didn’t include illustrations of Gregor post-transformation (Kafka was know to object to this). The art in this is compared to Junji Ito but I honestly don’t see it myself.

Overall I loved this and I highly recommend it to fans of the original Kafka and fans of manga alike.