THE EXILE - Erick Kriek


 Hallstein Thordsson returns to his home in Iceland having spent seven years in exile . On his return he finds that all is not well and that his past still hovers over his family. He discovers that his stepmother has a suitor and she's not interested but the man will not leave her alone. Hallstein's return threatens the suitor's power and all of Iceland may suffer with the weight of the Exile's return.

I ... I really don't know what to make of this short graphic novel. I have such mixed feelings about this.

The story is quite compelling - it's not an action/adventure story as one might think, given the title and the cover, but rather a human interest story. And I liked it.  But ...  It grew dull. The pacing of the story is slow and methodical all the way through. And the art does not help this.

Imagine going to a movie and every single scene began the same way - with a long shot, slowly pulling in to a cottage on a shore, birds flying over the water.  Every scene! That's what this book is like.   So - many- scenes- begin exactly this way. It's so repetitive, and while, yes, it establishes both place and mood, we don't need to establish it when it never changes.

The art otherwise was fine. I didn't find it overly exciting, and the people as drawn were sometimes much more 'cartoony' than I generally like in a graphic novel, and I found the style to be a cross between realistic and a woodcut-looking stylized.

I've seen looked at some of the reviews of this book and other works by author/artist Erick Kriek (who seems to have a good following), and I must have missed something that others are finding, but I really found this to be tepid and it doesn't make me want to rush out and read more works by Kriek.

Looking for a good book? The Exile is a graphic novel by Erick Kriek that could be a really interesting human interest story, but gets bogged down in its setting and mood.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

3 stars

* * * * * *

The Exile

author: Erick Kriek

artist: Erick Kriek

publisher: Living The Line

ISBN: 9781736860526

hardcover, 192 pages

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

VINYL RESTING PLACE - Olivia Blacke

Image
 Juni Jessup and her two sister, Tansy and Maggie, have gone into business together in their hometown of Cedar River, Texas, opening a combination record store and coffee shop. Vinyl LPs are making a comeback after all, despite critics thinking the medium was dead.  But speaking of 'dead' ... finding a dead body in the supply closet just as they are looking to have a grand opening is not part of the plan.  Juni's life gets more complicated when their uncle, Calvin, already a suspect in the murder, disappears. And the police officer leading the investigation is Juni's EX-boyfriend (who passive-aggressively keeps putting himself back into her life). Convinced that her uncle would never murder anyone, Juni sets out to prove his innocence - which isn't easy since he's making himself look guilty - because Calvin is family and family is EVERYthing to Juni. As readers of my blog know, I'm not a big fan of most cozy mysteries, but the setting caught my eye and my in...
Read more

THE WALLED CITY - Ryan Graudin

Image
  Jin and her sister, Mei Yee, were taken and sold and then sent to the lawless Walled City to serve as prostitutes or slaves to anyone willing to pay. Jin managed to escape her captivity, but not the Walled City and she now lurks about, disguised as a boy and is trying to track down the brothel where her sister is still captive. Jin will work odd delivery jobs to earn a small bit of money and hopefully have a legitimate means of coming in contact with her sister's captors.  This is how she meets up with Dai, a mysterious boy who has somehow managed to avoid running with any of the gangs in the city but he seems to have his own unusual connections, which Jon could desperately use if she has any hope of finding Mei Yee. But Dai has his own desperate needs.  The story is told from the different perspectives of each character and we do bounce around quite a bit as the chapters are generally short. This never bothered me, which is slightly unusual as often I find this techni...
Read more

THE RAVEN THIEF - Gigi Pandian

Image
 With Tempest Raj now a member of the company, Secret Staircase Construction (a company who, as their title suggests, builds mystery-themed, secret rooms inside homes) has finished their first job. Their client now wants to celebrate to kick off her new beginning - new home and new life now that she's divorced from her cheating ex-husband, famous mystery author Corbin Colt. First up, a mock séance to remove any trace of Corbin from the property, led by Tempest's friend, Sanjay.   But during that séance, while all those gathered sat in a dark room holding hands, Corbin's dead body crashes the party, falling across the table in front of everyone. There were eight people in the room, and they were all holding hands, but all the evidence points to one of them being the murderer.  Suspicions point to Ash, Tempest's grandfather, because he was the only one with Corbin's blood on him. Of course, as a doctor, he was also the only one who checked on the body - ...
Read more