Still Life Las Vegas by James Sie is a young adult novel that is unique and intriguing. Written from multiple points of view, the story goes back and forth in time and details the somewhat tragic life of the Stahl family but it mainly focuses on seventeen year old Walter. Interspersed with beautifully rendered illustrations by Sungyoon Choi, some parts of the story are told in graphic novel format while some of drawings are from Walter's sketchbook.

Walter lives in a seedy part of Las Vegas with his father Owen who suffers from debilitating bouts of depression. Walter keenly feels the loss of his mother, Emily, who abandoned the family when he was five years old. He works in a tourist attraction where he searches the faces of the visitors hoping to catch a glimpse of his mom. He leads a rather lonely life until he befriends living statues Chrysto and his sister Acacia. This acquaintance becomes a time of discovery for Walter as his friendship with Chrysto takes a surprising turn while an unanticipated visit brings him unexpected news about his mom.

Forced to grow up too soon, Walter is extremely mature for his age. He often finds himself in the role of caregiver for Owen and he is responsible for most of the household chores and managing their meager finances. Although he has no memories of his mother, Walter finds himself looking for her in the faces of the tourists he meets. However, she is relegated to the back of his mind after he becomes enthralled with Chrysto. This friendship opens Walter to new experiences and also provides him with startling insight about himself. Shocking news about his mom coincides with a betrayal and sends Walter into a downward spiral.

The chapters in the novel alternate between Walter, Owen and Emily's points of view. Walter's chapters take place when he seventeen while Owen and Emily's jump around to different time periods in their lives. Emily's perspective includes pivotal information about her childhood while Owen's detail the early years of his romance with Emily and their marriage. There are also chapters detailing Emily's life after she abandons the family and her experiences reach nearly mythical proportions by the novel's conclusion.

The coming of age aspect of the storyline, Walter's personal awakening and learning the series of events that led to Emily's abandonment are quite fascinating but the overall execution of the novel is disjointed and difficult to follow. Although the perspective changes are clearly marked, the time periods are fluid and some of the chapters end rather abruptly. The graphic novel sections are interesting but if you are not a reader of graphic novels, this switch from prose can be annoying. (I personally found the longer segments with the graphic elements frustrating since they contained vital information about the unfolding story.)

Although the plot is a little busy, Still Life Las Vegas is a poignant and engrossing novel coming of age novel. The characters are well-developed, the storyline is quite distinctive and the illustrations are absolutely beautiful. The Las Vegas setting is the perfect backdrop for the unfolding story and James Sie brings the city vibrantly to life. Unexpected plot twists keep the novel moving at a brisk pace and the conclusion is realistic and mostly satisfying.
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Overreaching...but bless its heart for some of the accuracies of Las Vegas itself. ( )

The writing quality itself in this book is alright, the structure of the telling of the story is where things rapidly go downhill. The main character Walter is a completely lost 18 year old with separated messed up parents, and they live in Las Vegas. The problem this book had for me was two-fold 1. It is often risky telling a story from a different characters view point using alternating chapters. 2. It is also risky telling stories in both the past (especially multiple times in the past), as well as in the present. This book combines both of these styles and the book is a mess. This is not recommended for a first time author.
Because of the various viewpoints and the back and forth in time, it is hard to track anything that is actually happening. Sadly the story was overly complicated by its style. ( )

This quirky, strange, sometimes-confusing debut novel doesn't seem to know what it wants to be when it grows up. I agree with others that the writing is good and the reading experience was definitely interesting, but I ultimately found the book to be quite dark and sad with little resolution for the characters or the reader. James Sie stuffed way too many concepts, themes, and plots into this one novel between the family curse, issues of race, adoption, competitive accordion playing, Liberace, mythology, coming of age as a homosexual, mental health issues, immigration, Las Vegas, and Greek culture. Because of this breadth, the depth was missing and I was disappointed that characters who seemed quite intriguing were left relatively undeveloped. I suspect that this novel could have been excellent with a bit more focus. The pages here and there in graphic novel format further added to the chaos. Maybe if the entire book had been written as a graphic novel with the wonderful illustrations of Sungyoon Choi, the unbelievability and expansive nature of the story would have seemed at home. ( )