Title: JP Roth’s Ancient Dreams
Published By: Ablaze
Written By: JP Roth
Illustrated By: Mike Krome & Dawn McTeigue
ISBN: 9781950912391
Ages: 18+
Review: Cara Wynter keeps having dark dreams, but they feel so real. Unable to be touched without feeling immense pain, there’s something so amazing about the man in her dreams that can touch her without hurting her. Cara is no ordinary girl – she is the daughter of witches, and if the stories are true, the man in her dreams is the son of Hades himself. Now Cara is being pulled into the world of Gods and Goddesses, and it’s up to her to save the man haunting her dreams.
What sticks out the most about this graphic novel is the absolutely gorgeous art contained within – the golden tones on some pages and the intense detail can be absolutely mind blowing. Not every page is perfection, and some of the characters are drawn so drastically that their body seems like it could be painful to even stand. And unfortunately, odd blocks occasionally appear around speech bubbles that take away from some of the beauty. Furthermore, sometimes the text is oddly added onto the images with similar coloring, making it unreadable.
What doesn’t work in this graphic novel is the storytelling. The story makes confusing jumps, and it’s often hard for the reader to understand what is or isn’t a dream. Characters seem to be thrown in randomly – mentioned at a time that makes no sense for them to be brought up, and very little is explained about their part in the overall story. Everything just seems very disconnected. There’s a chance that this could work better as a novel, where the author has more space and time to explain everything properly, but as a graphic novel, this book is unfortunately not living up the hype.
Amanda Toth, Technology Center Manager
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