Hey there bibliophiles,

Man, it’s been a great pride month for me so far with these great reads. How are yours going? Well I hope! A lot of the picks I chose were graphic novels because I just love how quickly I can blast through them. Speaking of which, I’m reviewing another one today!

This time I read The Low, Low Woods by Carmen Maria Machado.

I wasn’t able to find many LGBT horror graphic novels, but this was one of the few that sounded interesting and had quite the intriguing cover. Not knowing much more than that, I dove right in, so let’s get this book review on the road!

Blurb

When your memories are stolen, what would you give to remember? Follow El and Vee as they search for answers to the questions everyone else forgot.

Shudder-to-Think, Pennsylvania, is plagued by a mysterious illness that eats away at the memories of those affected by it. El and Octavia are two best friends who find themselves the newest victims of this disease after waking up in a movie theater with no memory of the past few hours.

As El and Vee dive deeper into the mystery behind their lost memories, they realize the stories of their town hold more dark truth than they could’ve imagined. It’s up to El and Vee to keep their town from falling apart…to keep the world safe from Shudder-to-Think’s monsters.

Collects issues # 1-6.

GoodReads

Amazon

***Brief disclosure***

I am an Amazon affiliate and earn a tiny commission for purchases made through the Amazon links in this post at no cost to you. It’s a great way to help me keep things running on my blog if you’re already intrigued enough to make a purchase. 

The Review

This graphic novel was fun, but in the end it was just okay for me.

Alright, so we’ve got these two teens El and Vee. They’re bestie lesbian friends that live in this bizarre place called Shudder-to-Think. One night at the movies they suffer a strange memory loss and decide to delve deeper. As they dig, they discover sinister secrets about their town and its dark past and present.

I really loved the premise. This clearly had a Silent Hill vibe (or Centralia if you prefer) that really worked. There was a dark ominous feel to every page that I just soaked right up.

El and Vee were interesting characters. We got some backstory throughout this volume of comics, and their interactions were really believable as besties who grew up together. There was a good contrast between the two of them too. El is a bit more pessimistic and comes from a poor family, while Vee is more of an optimist.

Where I started feeling conflicted was with the art. Overall it’s pretty good. It has more of a gritty feel to it that may have been inspired by older comics. However, in some of the strips, the faces of characters got really distorted, enough to where it drew me out of the story.

I also felt that the plot ended up just being okay. Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot of great ramp up of discovering what the big bad was, but once it was revealed I was a little underwhelmed, probably because it seemed more rooted in reality, or at least something that could happen in real life. The wow factor just wasn’t quite there, but it was still entertaining.

I may not have liked this one a lot, but if you’re on the fence, try it! You may just love it.

That’s A Wrap!

Well that’s it for this book review. I hope you enjoyed it!

Have you read this book? Are there other similar books you’ve read that you simply have to gush about? Feel free to leave a comment. I’d love to start a conversation!

Have a great day!

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