I initially wanted to write this review in Dutch since it's a Dutch book, but I couldn't find the right words.... so English it shall be!
I initially I initially wanted to write this review in Dutch since it's a Dutch book, but I couldn't find the right words.... so English it shall be!
I initially had high hopes and high expectations for my very first Dutch graphic novel. I mean it's about selkies (I have a mermaid obsession), it's LGBTQ+ and a graphic novel. Basically everything I adore. Sadly, I have to say that this wasn't it. I also don't like to write negative reviews for smaller Dutch authors since our market can be tough. But damn... this story really frustrated me. And I wanted to like it so much.
The idea of the story is really cool and unique but the execution was very lacking. You never really know what's happening, what is real and what is a dream. Nothing is really explained and you really don't get any details at all. Our main character experienced some type of trauma in the miliary that constantly gets referenced but never explained. In the beginning there's only an article that mentions something about misconduct, power imbalances, drug abuse etcetera. We can only speculate what happened. This isn't the only instance of missing information. As someone that basically lives and breathes manhwa, webtoons, comics, graphic novels, manga & manhua I can say that it isn't a case of oh must be of the graphic novel format. No it isn't. This story simply doesn't give us enough (or any information at all). So the lack of information that essential to the story kind of made reading this graphic novel frustrating to me. I'm left with more questions than answers. What happened at the marines? Why did he leave? Why is he traumatised by what happened there? Why is he seeing the selkie? Have they met before? Why is the selkie speaking/appearing in his dreams? Why does the selkie like him? And why does he start liking the selkie? The story felt very unfinished and underdeveloped to me. This feels like a rough first draft than the actual final version.
The story also doesn't flow naturally. It feels like you're reading snippets of a story and that you go from one snippet to another. There are weird gaps that truly hinder the continuation of the story. The chapters, pages don't flow naturally. The pace is all over the place. It doesn't feel like a continuation of one big story and that we're only getting fragments of the big overall story.
Based on the cover, I was expecting to love the art. This changed when I started to read this. The art is quite simplistic and not in colour (I'm too used to graphic novels being coloured that I forget that that's not the case for all graphic novels). Besides, the art is sadly too simplistic for my taste. There were some really beautiful panels but overall a lot of details were lost. ...more
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