Rating: WORTHY!
This was one of those advance review copies Net Galley offers as a 'read now', evidently because it isn't getting much attention. Unfortunately most of those are not very good, which is why they get little attention, but once in a while you can find one that is a worthy read, and I struck lucky on this occasion, because out of four such graphic novels I requested, three turned out to be pretty darned good, and this was one of them.
I have to confess up front that I was a bit lost in this because it's part of a series and I haven't read any of the series prior to this one, but this looked interesting from the description, and it turned out to be so in the reading, even though ti took me a while to get up to speed. It would have been nice to have had a brief "story so far" at the start.
What really brought me on-board was the kick-ass female characters in it, who were also the main characters. I loved them. Note that when I describe a character as a strong female character, or as 'kick-ass' for short, this doesn't necessarily mean that she can literally kick ass, although the two here could. It simply means that I like her presence, and I like the way the story lights-up when she's involved, even if all she's doing is talking. It means she's interesting, passionate (in the broadest sense), has something to bring to the tale, has inner strength, and has depth and character.
The blurb on Goodreads describes this volume as "Kate Kristopher was a globally renowned explorer on an Earth fart more fantastic than our own." I can't imagine an Earth fart more fantastic than our own...! Obviously, someone mis-typed! In this volume, Kate Kristopher has lost her memory, but she has a lot of help regaining it.
My only real complaint is that the art work was very scrappy and didn't win my love (unlike the main character!). It was made worse in the advance review copy because it had been sent at low resolution, presumably to keep file size down. This was a mistake, because it looked grubby and blurry to an extent, with the lettering appearing rather muddy, although it was readable, and as I said, this was an ARC. I'm sure the actual published version is better, but the low quality of this copy prevented me from really being able to offer useful comments on the artwork, which isn't a good idea in a review copy for a graphic novel! Just sayin'!
This is a weird fantasy world which seems to be occupied by sentient cats, who behave exactly like humans (which is more of a weakness in the story than a strength IMO) and who share the word with humans. Of course, there is conflict, but not necessarily between humans and cats. I enjoyed how it was depicted, and I liked the cliffhanger ending. Overall, I liked this novel, and I recommend it as a worthy read.
