I love the artwork and I’m intrigued. This story is extremely fast-paced and full of reverse-uno cards.

[4 stars for enjoyment] ( )

This story was original written in French, which has to explain how disjointed and strangely it flows. It goes back and forth between scenes so harshly that it sometimes feels like the panels were printed out-of-order. But overall it is a charming story with absolutely incredible artwork. ( )

This is a super fun, cute, and interesting graphic novel. It's about a girl named Sorceline who goes to an island where mystical beasts and animals roam free. It's got a Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts feel to it with a school about learning how to care for magical creatures and such. There's also a great little mystery element to the story as well. The art and illustrations are beautiful and really add to the telling of the story. I would definitely recommend this if you enjoy graphic novels, great art and illustrations, magic, mystery, mystical animals, and everything. Thanks so much to Edelweiss and Andrews McMeel Publishing for letting me read and review this enjoyable graphic novel. All thoughts and opinions are my own. ( )

I really wanted to like this book, but I just can't look past it's many glaring flaws.

The bad: The plot moves at a constant break-neck pace, oftentimes covering multiple plot points in a single page. There's exposition in all the wrong places, forgettable creatures and tidbits are discussed at length while central characters are left ambiguous and generic. The mystery lurches around in circles before leaving you with a disappointing climax. The dialog itself is very awkward but I figure this is a translation issue.

The good: The main selling point for me are the illustrations. The artwork is vibrant and sucks you in, with tons of small details to keep you occupied. However, the panels are so cramped that it's very difficult to get a good look at them. Something cool they do is reference back to images earlier in the book as clues for the mystery. I think this is super cool and I wish the story was competent enough to play off of it.

All-in-all I did not enjoy this book. I understand it's for a younger audience, but if I would have read this years ago I feel that I would have had a similar reaction. It's a great idea ruined with bad pacing, boring characters, and an excessively complex but poorly written story. ( )