I'm still not too sure what this book was about? I understood the general plot but I was a little bit confused in parts ( )

Decided to quit when I was halfway through and still had no idea what the hell was going on.

Fi, a young girl who likes to take pictures, accompanies her professor father to the small hamlet of Calico. Something mysterious is going on in the forest and Fi, along with her new-found friend Jaden, are caught up in saving the town from the strange men in the forest who are also leasing an empty storefront in town.
AUGUST MOON, a graphic novel by Diane Thung, considers the legend of the Soul Fire; floating lights in the sky that supposedly represent the souls of departed ancestors. It took awhile to really get into the feeling of the drawings but once I got a sense of it, it became somewhat magical. Thung relies on facial expressions and action scenes rather than lengthy conversations to convey a message. Her use of line is just sufficient to render emotion - sometimes deep emotion - that I felt along with the character.
My favorite ‘characters’ are the floating ‘animals’ carrying lanterns. I’m not sure what they’re called but they sure are floaty, ethereal, and otherworldly. I’m a sucker for floaty things. Especially if they glow like the lanterns these animals hold at the end of poles
Not everything is revealed, which left me thinking things over after I’d finished the book. It stuck with me. I’ll be thinking about this story for awhile. There are some things that go unanswered that kind of bugged me. What exactly IS going on in the forest? How can a group of men eat that many biscuits? What is with that Lilliput song?
Thung does a great job in making each character an individual personality, although the fact that every major villain held a cigarette was pretty funny to me. Does smoking make one a villain?
Generally an interesting book, AUGUST MOON is a quick, enchanting tale.

This review was written after reading an advance copy loaned to me by the publisher. No money was paid to me for this review. ( )

Fi, a young girl who likes to take pictures, accompanies her professor father to the small hamlet of Calico. Something mysterious is going on in the forest and Fi, along with her new-found friend Jaden, are caught up in saving the town from the strange men in the forest who are also leasing an empty storefront in town.
AUGUST MOON, a graphic novel by Diane Thung, considers the legend of the Soul Fire; floating lights in the sky that supposedly represent the souls of departed ancestors. It took awhile to really get into the feeling of the drawings but once I got a sense of it, it became somewhat magical. Thung relies on facial expressions and action scenes rather than lengthy conversations to convey a message. Her use of line is just sufficient to render emotion - sometimes deep emotion - that I felt along with the character.
My favorite ‘characters’ are the floating ‘animals’ carrying lanterns. I’m not sure what they’re called but they sure are floaty, ethereal, and otherworldly. I’m a sucker for floaty things. Especially if they glow like the lanterns these animals hold at the end of poles
Not everything is revealed, which left me thinking things over after I’d finished the book. It stuck with me. I’ll be thinking about this story for awhile. There are some things that go unanswered that kind of bugged me. What exactly IS going on in the forest? How can a group of men eat that many biscuits? What is with that Lilliput song?
Thung does a great job in making each character an individual personality, although the fact that every major villain held a cigarette was pretty funny to me. Does smoking make one a villain?
Generally an interesting book, AUGUST MOON is a quick, enchanting tale.

This review was written after reading an advance copy loaned to me by the publisher. No money was paid to me for this review. ( )

I had been wanting to read this graphic novel for a while. It ended up being a very good story, the illustration is okay as well but nothing spectacular.

Fiona Gan comes to town with her father who is there to research some strange unknown rabbit-like creature that has been found in the City. When Fiona arrives she meets Jaden (who says he came from the moon), sees Soul Fires, strange graffiti on the walls, and meets some gentle rabbit/bear-like creatures. However, Fiona isn’t the only new arrival in town, an evil corporation set on taking down the forest has set up shop as well. Jaden enrolls Fiona’s help in stopping this evil entity.

This graphic novel does a great job of telling a fairly complex story through pictures and dialogue. There are some neat ideas here and a lot of magical realism. Also some commentary on saving the environment, the importance of family, friendship, and the evil of corporations. There is also some discussion about religion versus science and whether or not heaven exists. I found the story to be very enjoyable and engaging.

I wasn’t a big fan of the illustration style though. At times it was a bit hard to tell what was going on and hard to distinguish characters from each other. The illustration is all black and white, the pictures get a bit crowded and hard to follow. This is a case where the illustration of this graphic novel didn’t add much to the story for me, it does help with telling the story...it just didn’t add anything special to it.

This graphic novel is appropriate for all ages, but given the nuances behind the corporate politics, I would recommend for middle grade or older readers. I think younger readers will just be confused about what is going on. Also there is some violence, one of the characters get shot.

Overall a decent graphic novel full of magical realism. The story is very engaging and quite good, it was more complex than I thought it would be and touches on a lot of interesting issues while weaving in some magic as well. I was disappointed in the illustration though, it was hard to follow at points and didn’t really add anything special to the story. Tentatively recommended to graphic novel fans, especially fans of fantasy graphic novels. ( )