*I was given an ARC of Coven in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to HarperCollins and Soman Chainani for my copy of this graphic novel*
Synopsis:
Need your magical crime solved?
Call the Witch Coven.
Hester, Anadil, and Dot are legendary across the Endless Woods as vigilante detectives and protectors of the peace. The famed trio are not only talented witches but also ride-or-die friends who’ve never left a case unsolved.
That is, until the Coven answers a call for help from a mysterious new world—Red Isle, where the Light and Dark Lands are on the brink of all-out war, each blaming the other for a grim spree of deaths. Now the Coven must work together and unmask the killer before Red Isle tears itself apart. Little do they know: The real enemy might be hiding in plain sight . . .
Review:
When I came across this graphic novel, I hadn’t made the connection that it was created by the author of The School for Good and Evil. I’ve never read these books despite owning the first three for quite a while. I’m not sure if, because of this, I didn’t really understand what was going on in this, as I’m pretty sure there were quite a few references (I’ve seen the Netflix adaptation).
I don’t usually let the formatting of ARCs affect my rating, but when a graphic novel is low resolution and doesn’t fill the entire screen, so you have to zoom in on every page, you definitely start to lose interest in what you’re reading.
The story felt a little flat. Having ‘light’ and ‘dark’ fighting against each other is something I think we can all agree is overdone. I understand that this is supposed to reflect the ‘good’ and ‘evil’ of the original books but having the ‘dark’ side of the isle being impoverished and the ‘light’ side being rich and royalty is symbolism we really don’t need.
The climate change plot was very timely and made for a powerful story, but this felt overshadowed by the fighting between sides.
Also, the pacing was so strange. It felt like nothing was happening and then all of a sudden people were dropping to the ground without faces. It felt like I was missing something for a while. The reveal of what was happening was pretty interesting though and tied in well with the climate change plot.
The artwork was pretty decent. Nothing too outstanding, I liked the character designs but the low quality of the files definitely impacted how I felt about it.
If you’ve read the original series, you may enjoy this more, but I’m not too sure how interlinked they are.
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