Sunday, January 8, 2017

Kindred: A Graphic Novel AdaptationKindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Octavia E. Butler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For my first graphic novel read ever, this was a heavy but excellent representation of a dark time in history. While it's hard to call this "great reading experience" as sometimes that experience was painful, I could enjoy the story for what is was meant to be. I read the original book "Kindred" by Octavia Butler a couple of years ago and I just remember being so moved by this book that I was sobbing. I truly felt connected to the characters and the time travel aspect, etc. I apologize in advance if a majority of this review might be to compare the novel to the adaptation, that's just how my brain things.

Even with my high expectations, this graphic novel really brought it to life. I enjoyed flipping through all of the images on the pages, although I do have to admit that it was an intense graphic experience. Would not recommend this for the younger readers, but you know that going into this.
The characters were always the ones who made it for me in this graphic novel retelling, and in the original as well. They come alive, their motivations and struggles and victories become crystal clear when shown on the page. I could root for them, admire them, despise them. Surprisingly, I had more feelings this time because of how blatant the racism was and how graphic the violence was portrayed.

I didn't really mind this, but I have noticed that there is bigger emphasis on dialogue, meaning that there is a lot of it in every single comic strip. It would probably take your longer to dissect than the average graphic novel that is more fixed on the images, but what do I know?
One thing that was a slight bit negative, was that it was hard to keep track of the side characters. Visually, I had a hard time of placing names with faces and kept losing track of who's who. But again, that's a "me" thing, not a fault of the author or artist.

Another thing that I would have liked to be a bit more concise what the time lines were portrayed as. Looking back, there wasn't that much of a difference between the mid 1900s and 1700s? in the images.

Overall, if you're on the fence of seeing your favorite classic turn into a graphic novel adaptation, this one is worth taking a shot, even though we all know it will never be as good as the beloved novel, nevertheless is was a worthy representation.

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange of my honest review. All opinions are my own.**


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