Book Preview: Black is for Beginnings + Contest!

Pub Date - September 1, 2009

The Blue is for Nightmares series that put a spell on half a million young adult readers continues - in graphic novel format!

Prophetic nightmares. Near-brushes with death. Killers pursuing her and her friends. Stacey Brown knows that being a hereditary witch isn't all it's cracked up to be.

All she really wants to do is work things out with Jacob and figure out what to do with the rest of her life. But before Stacey and Jacob can have a future, they must face their pasts. Black is for beginnings reveals the never-before-seen backstory - and what lies ahead - for the young, spell-casting lovers. (book back blurb)

This isn't a book review since I don't have the whole book. It's just a bound preview edition that's the first 99 pages of the book itself. I figured why not put in some cents on it, right? It's not going to get a rating or anything since I don't think it's fair to rate something based on a portion of it. But I can give an impression of it.

I know with this series I'm not coming in in the right place and in all honesty, I don't know if I'm the best person to be judging graphic novels. I just don't read enough of them to get a good grasp on them so I'm not sure what's normal, what isn't, what's good, what isn't. But I can say a few things.

I'm almost positive I'd like the book better. It's not that I don't like comics but to me it's lacking a lot from an actual book. I can paint a better picture in my head with the words from a book than I can with the pictures already in front of me. Weird, I know, but there you go.

Plot-wise, it's really jumpy. The timeline is more stream-of-consciousness than chronological (although it's chronological within the stream-of-consciousness which lowers the confusion slightly) and I found it hard trying to keep all of the events together coherently. With everything jumping all over the place, it was hard for me to remember what came when and where.

And a major writing issue for me was the "let's recap even though you guys should know what's going on in the story" moment. It's in there for the benefit of the reader, not the characters, so it comes off as an infodump. Granted it's a crucial infodump for the book itself but I think there are other, better, ways to go about it.

The drawings are pretty cool but like I said, I paint more vivid imagery with words than I do with pictures. But the story itself I actually really liked. It's very fast-paced, has the right amount of drama and tension, it's got some action. There really isn't anything not to like about the story as it is. In fact, it makes me want to go out and buy the books to get a feel of just what I'm jumping into here because I do feel a little lost. But I'm sure that's due solely to the fact that I've never read the series.

So I'm not too sure how I feel about the comic but I definitely like the story.

CONTEST TIME!!!

I have two of these preview books for Black is for Beginnings, plus a bookmark each to go along with it. You want one? Here's what you have to do--

+1 Comment with your email to enter
+2 for following (new or old)
+2 for linking

This'll end September 7th at midnight, EST. US residents only please. Good luck!