KhepiAri

Book Review: Tithe a Modern Faerie Tale by Holly Black. Quote: Her hands felt very cold as she remembered the diner. What would it be like to be a puppet? What would it be like to watch your own hands disobey you? A book title I was pronouncing wrong for almost a decade now! I found Holly Black before I found Neil Gaiman, at the age of 15. Since then I have been trying to read stories she had written. Tithe is the story of a sixteen-year-old, Kaye, a blonde American-Japanese girl. Who grew up in clubs and pubs cleaning after her unsuccessful rock singer mom. Holly Black never sighs away from showing the dark, not so innocent and messed up world of teens. Kaye has dropped out of school, she smokes, she makes out, she works to keep her two unit family functional, and once she had friends from the faerie realm. The story takes a shift when her mom's boyfriend turns homicidal and they move back to her grandmother's. Kaye's life turns weird soon, she saves...

Graphic Novel Review: Kingdom Come by Mark Waid and Alex Ross. Quote: According to the word of God, the meek would someday inherit the earth. Someday. But God never accounted for the mighty. Once I was talking about Superhero comics, a question that was put forward to me was, why does humanity always want a saviour why can't it protect itself? That's the core ideology of Bruce Wayne's entire character development. Kingdom Come tackles this very question: does the world need Superman? Set in an AU offshore earth, where the second generation of superhumans who roam the planet. They are powerful and reckless, and have no respect for life and leave behind a trail of destruction. I began reading this book last year expecting a narrative that will explore the void left behind by the big three, but the book turned out to be just another Superman story. The event that leads to the chaos in this world is because Superman has exiled himself to t...

Graphic Novel Review: Persephone by Loïc Locatelli Kournwsky Quote: Oh great. Would little miss Botany care to fill is in, on what 'amazing plant' we are helping her hunt today? The answer to that my pet! Pop a seed and next thing you know, you're laughing so hard that you can't stop. Throw me the words 'Persephone and Hades', I will gobble up any piece of writing. So while looking for Persephone and Hades' art I found this graphic novel on Google books and I fell in love with it. This book is a very loose retelling of the Persephone myth, it is devoid of the romance element but definitely based on the snatching of Persephone to the underworld. Set in fantasy land, divided between the prosperous upperland Eleusis and the barren sun-bereft underworld Hades. A brief history of both the lands at the beginning sets the story in motion. Demeter is the strongest magician of Eleusis, who help end the war with Hades. The art is so dense, mangaesque, beau...

Cat Tales: Smoke Cat by Linda Newbery and Stephen Lambert Quote: She kept bending down to touch something. As Simon's eyes adjusted to the first grey light he could see shapes moving around at her feet, rubbing against her legs-- soft, fluid, furry shadows, like cats. Although they were shadowy, Simon could make out the different colours: black cats, white cats, tabby cats, pied cats, marmala de cats. Simon has moved into a new hundred-years-old house, made of red bricks and ambushed with wild green. While his mother and father are busy settling down, Simon is busy climbing up the apple tree. He spots an elderly neighbour who talks to her flower, named like humans. But as night comes Simon from his window finds out that his old neighbour is always calling out for Blue. A cat that roams around the fence but never heeds to anyone's call. It's a sweet book, the language is an example of clarity but is vivacious enough for a child to imagine everything up while it li...

Graphic Novel Review- The Unwritten: On to Genesis by Peter Gross, Mike Carey and Vince Locke Quote: The source is people. Specifically, people who read a story and get something out of it. Maybe give something back, too. Somehow Wilson was able to turn that emotion into power, and draw on it. The cover art by Yuko Shimizu always sets the standard so high for the story inside that my heart dies a little when I find the pages to be filled with regular page layouts and panels. Tom Taylor finally frees himself from the tale of Moby Dick, now with Lizzie Hexam and Richie Savoy are about to steal Wilson Taylor's journals from an auction. The journals contain the truth about the power of storytelling made flesh and blood. Unwritten is a story that is too grand and at times too intelligent for its own good. The tendency to touch upon every other literary reference and pay tribute to stories makes it a scattered read. I loved the little trip to the Golden Age of ...

Comicbook Review: 2 in 1, a) Dark Destiny and b) Fish Tale by Harsho Mohon Chattoraj Quote: They let us go, and we ran as fast as possible. Some distance away, Muhammad turned back to his home. But I ran on. And it feels like I've been running on forever... I so wish my family and friends were here with me . This slim self-published comic comes with two stories, one of tragedy this nation can't forget, another a story of food culture. Dark Destiny is a micro-history of a refugee boy, trying to survive the India-Pakistan partition. Among dying people and dead bodies, our boy is remembering how his fortunes turned and he ended up on the other side. A story of hunger, deprivation, desperation and pathos; many of us have heard from our grandparents and our parents, the horrors of partition still live and haunts the Bengali Community. So the gestures of bravery showed by few to help others then, gets its due respect in this story. Fish Tales definitel...

Book Review: The Graveyard Book Volume II by Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell Quote: The midsummer sky was already beginning to lighten in the east, and that was the way Bod began to walk.  But between now and then there was life and Bod walked into it with his eyes and his heart wide open. The story begins from where we left book one, an eleven-year-old Nobody Owens looking for new friends and understanding how he came to the graveyard. The last three chapters are beautifully illustrated by David Lafuente, Scott Hampton, and P. Craig Russell, Kevin Nowlan and Glen Showman. I loved David's art the most, it was detailed with solid colours. Maureen Quilling's character design was exactly done the way I imagined while reading the novel. I love how Silas was fleshed out in the darkness, he looks as cold as his words are. He is so dedicated to the boy that he makes sure Bod gets some access to the ways of living, like sending Bod to a football game. ...