Pea-Sized Reviews: Spectacle

I'm on a serious graphic novel kick right now... I'm literally putting a hold on every new graphic novel my library gets in that remotely interests me. I love that I can binge-read these in like a day, and yet still get so completely sucked into the story and the world and the characters because the art brings it all alive. If you have any suggestions for great graphic novels, please send them my way!



Spectacle, Vol. 1
by Megan Rose Gedris

Available as: paperback, Kindle edition, ebook
Pages: 136
Publisher: Oni Press
Publication date: May 22, 2018
Suggested tags: young adult (ages 13-17), graphic novel, mystery, ghosts, circus/carnival



From Goodreads:

"Fan-favorite webcomic creator Megan Rose Gedris (Yu+Me Dream) crafts a compelling tale of magic, deception, and wonder in this stunningly illustrated graphic novel about the bond between sisters.

Pragmatic engineer Anna works as a psychic in the Samson Brothers Circus, but she doesn't believe in anything supernatural—until her twin sister Kat is murdered and comes back as a very demanding ghost. Sharing a room with her sister was hard, but now they're sharing a body while trying to identify the killer. With few leads, a troupe full of secretive folk, and strange paranormal occurrences popping up around the circus, solving the case seems near impossible. But the murderer in their midst may be the least of their problems..."

I have a thing for books set in circuses or carnivals, plus I liked the murder mystery plot with a ghostly twist, so this one was a winner for me. I wasn't sure how I felt about the style of the art at first, but it did grow on me quite a bit. I actually loved the bonus art at the end with the circus posters. The story starts off kind of heavy with Anna discovering her twin sister Kat's murdered body... but it does get a little lighter and even humorous at some points. Kat finds that she can dive into Anna's body and kind of camp out there, so the two of them get down to the business of collecting clues and trying to solve Kat's murder. There are some mysterious things happening around the circus and it ends on kind of a wtf cliffhanger that made me want to pick up the next volume immediately (and after some searching, I discovered that more issues are available online! wheee!!).

Final verdict: I loved it!

{ My reviews are honest and my opinions are my own; 

your reading experience may vary, so give it a read and see what you think. :) }