From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
I haven't reviewed a graphic novel in a while and I'm sorry it was this one I'm reviewing after the hiatus, because I did not like it. It's really a manga, and those are not my favorite format even though this one reads left to right rather than 'backwards' as many of them do.
The artwork was perfectly fine (although quite often features were missing from faces), but a major problem was that every frame in every panel looked far too busy, and many were larded with stars and other symbols which distracted from the rest of the art, and most importantly from the dialog. That said, the dialog wasn't exactly stellar.
The biggest problem was the titular character, Kyle's Sister, whose name is Grace. I normally have issues with stories where the title describes a female as some sort of dependent or appendage of some guy ("The Time Traveler's Wife" 'the King's daughter' and so on). It's insulting to women to use titles like that, and I should have enforced my own guidance this time. More fool me for letting it slide!
Mistakenly, I thought that Grace might offer something of a strong female character to root for, and that she'd prove her mettle in coming out of Kyle's shadow, but she came across as miserable and whiny, and griping and uninteresting, and the focus of the girls in her sphere was entirely on boys - like these women had no agency of their own, and were essentially there to please guys or to pick up guys, or to validate guys, or whatever. This is how male writers preponderantly tend to depict females and it's truly sad. Again, it was insulting and it meant that the entire story was nothing more than an extension of the title: rather than a liberation, it was a subjugation.
I DNF'd this a little over a third of the way in because it was not doing the job and was insulting and badly-written. I can't commend it.
