Spectacle Review

// Myyyy, What an Intriguing Spectacle // Author: Megan Rose Gedris // Rating: 3/5

Synopsis: 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 received this book as an eARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Any quotes in this review may be different in the final publication.

This was a fun, breezy ride through circusland. I quite love the art style – not since I read Uncomfortably, Happily have I enjoyed a variety of noses so much. The first chapter or so is pretty solid: We got our murder mystery set-up, some banter between sisters, an array of character designs that is fab, all different body types and skin tones. Some of the script is hard to read unfortunately, all squishy squiggles, and I’m not sure how I feel about Anna, our living protag… she’s kind of lethargic and non-reactive to everything to the suspension-of-disbelief breaking point. Her sister was just murdered and it takes her over a day to clean off the blood – not from shock – she’s trading insults with her sis, Kat, rolling with seeing her as a ghost pretty much right off the bat. It also takes a loooooot of prodding from saintly Kat to get her to investigate the murder, but Anna doesn’t even do that quickly! A helpful snake charmer, Flora, (which ummmm she did it right??) cleans up the crime scene after several more days pass and Anna’s all “Nooooo, that was evidence…” that I ignored for daaaaays. But I’ve lingered too long on this point.  I just thought Anna’s characterization left a lot to be desired given she’s our protag in this particular plot. Maybe it was to contrast her with her extremely nice and friendly sister, and maybe there will be character development, but it kinda threw me a bit, how lackadaisical Anna was.

I really want to know more about everyone, and we get some of that in little exposition dumps (Carl, Kat’s knife throwing assistant, pleading his clown wife, Lucy’s, innocence was a nice backstory), and obviously there is a lot going on with “the freaks.” If we had had this story from Kat’s perspective, who actually made friends and lovers?? (the nameless bearded lady that makes Anna’s (with Kat inside her) heart race ahhh) and actually spoke to people she had worked beside for several years… well! The story would be different, heh. As is, I have soooo many questions, and that darn cliffhanger!!

It’s a pretty light volume, nothing spectacular, but it did suck me in, and I want to stick around in this world a bit longer. So whenever the next volume is produced, I’ll have my ticket ready.

This first volume comes out today!

Do you have any favorite circus-set stories? I always loved We’re Back: A Dinosaur’s Story, lol. Would you give this graphic novel a shot?