Review #34 - Anne Frank: The Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography by Sid Jacobson & Ernie Colón

This is the Anne Frank graphic biography which goes from her parent's early life to her death and her family's death in the concentration camps. It covers the time after her diary ends and it's sad and gorgeous and perfectly done.

I got this at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam which was underwhelming due to the sheer volume of very loud seven year olds. I was so impressed with the 9/11 memorial when I went in the summer and the british war graves in France when I went three and five years ago on school trips but this didn't quite have the same effect.

I've always really struggled to read the actual Anne Frank Diary as it is very long and I find it hard to be very interested in historical fiction and non-fiction. I really liked the graphic novel as it also went into her experiences after she left the annex and it was more accessible. The speech was done well and it was excellently paced.

The book is absolutely gorgeous and is definitely my favourite graphic novel. It captured their day to day lives really well and I think they did a very good job at capturing their personalities. It was just done really well.

I would read this if:
You want to know more about Anne Frank
You are just about to visit Amsterdam
You want to know more about European History and Nazi Occupation

I gave this five stars.

Review #29 - The Isobel Journal by Isobel Harrop

The Isobel Diaries was sent to me as an American ARC (it's already out here, I don't get it either) which I am super grateful for (thank you Capstone). It's a graphic novel about a teenage girl living in the north of England.

Isobel Harrop was actually only 18 when she wrote this (which is mental) and it is a very good graphic novel, especially for a teenage girl. I mean, she's a year older than me and I couldn't make something so wonderful and she should be really proud of it.

The drawing style is very similar to Rookie magazines illustration style which is really gorgeous. I especially liked the drawings done over photographs as it gave a lot of texture to the drawings. I did find the endless drawings of faces a little repetitive and I sort of skipped over those parts which was a shame.

Some parts of this book were laugh-out-loud funny which never ever happens to me. It was wonderfully insightful about A Levels and living in the UK and being a late teenager. I don't know how great it would be if you weren't one of these people.

"It's not that I haven't done my homework. It's just playing hard to get."

"I once thought it would be cute/funny/romantic to throw stones at a boy's window but I threw them at the wrong one."

I think I would have liked more on school because I didn't find the parts on boys as relatable as I never really have been boy obsessed and I think the parts on school were more insightful in general as the parts on boys were all emotion based.

There were four chapters: me; friends, otters, college and art; boys; breaking up (I really hope I punctuated that right). The book ended on breaking up which made the ending quite negative which is a shame because it is quite an uplifting book.

I have these very set opinions on what a graphic novel should be and unfortunately, The Isobel Journal did not live up to this. Graphic novels should be something who's natural home is not the bookshelf, but the coffee table and this isn't a coffee table book.

That being said, it did just make me want to make art and art and art because I haven't done much art since GCSE which is such a shame and I hope it's just lack of time as I really hope GCSE art has not put me off art together. It's books like this that make me want to start again.

I gave this three stars. It probably deserves more, I just didn't love it.

If you would like to buy this book (please do) buy it here

Review #13 - The Encyclopedia of Early Earth by Isabel Greenberg

 The Encyclopedia of Early Earth by Isabel Greenberg is a graphic novel centred around one man in a mixture of myths and legends.

This is probably one of the most beautiful books I have ever read.

Each picture is a lino print in these really beautiful rich dark colours with some reds and yellows. If you don't like graphic novels get this book just so it looks good on your coffee table. You never get bored of looking at it, only more and more amazed at how pretty it is. All the words are in the artist's/author's handwriting. It's just gorgeous.

The book has one main plot with many little stories woven into it, much like a season of Veronica Mars ("yes, Veronica Mars has taken over my life" she writes while listening to the Season 1 Soundtrack). Each story can be one page spread to six or seven page spreads with pages being one piece of art to a comic-book-format (both shown in the photos above).

There's a really beautiful mixing of myths, including famous Christian ones (Noah and the Whale) to ones no one has ever heard of before. I loved the twists that the author had put on them. It was just really gorgeous.

I book leaves you with a warm, glowy feeling and do you really need anything else from a book? It's pretty, it belongs on a coffee table, it's a nice mix of old and new, it has a good plot and it leaves you feeling good.

I gave this 5 stars. This is definitely a good starter to graphic novels.

Buy it here (also I get 5% commission so pretty please?)