Through the Woods
Ratings182
Average rating4
Simple stories that reminded me a bit of the sort of folk gothic tone of Harrow County. Which means this won't be for everyone, but I've a soft spot for tales like these. The tone was just right. The art was delightful and gorgeously simple. My library did a good job recommending this one.
Oh. My. Goodness.
I do believe I've found my favorite graphic novel of the year, so far. I'm sure you all know that I love fairy tales. If you've been following me for any length of time, that should be evident. What you might not know though, is that my favorite fairy tales (especially as a child) were the creepy ones. The unsettling ones. The ones that dealt with all the things that lurked in the dark.
Which is why Emily Carroll's Through The Woods has my heart, forever and always. These five stories aren't so much terrifying, as they are wholly unsettling. They creep in under your skin, and send shivers up your spine. It's beautiful how simplistic, and how short, all of these are. And yet, they manage to push across more atmosphere and depth than a lot of what I've read lately.
A lot of that has to do with the art. Oh, that sumptuous art. Again, it's simplistic. Yet, it's also not. The color palettes aren't varied too much, there's no stark definition, but each panel goes perfectly with the story that it's telling. One of my favorite panels was in “A Lady's Cold Hands”. Our narrator talks of how cold and unfeeling her new husband is, and there's this panel where it slowly zooms in on him devouring bloody meat with his teeth. Are they really sharp? Is it your imagination? I leave that up to you.
This was brilliant! Gorgeous, gripping, and compulsively readable. I'm buying this in physical format as soon as possible, because I feel like it deserves to be shared.
I've always loved the woods. I love the mostly untouched nature and all it's beauty. I love it when the sun's shimmering through the trees during the day, and I respect and fear it during the night. When trees and branches get distorted and forming shadows, that your brain interprets as pure terror.
I think everyone feared the woods at night as a child, and many adults still do. They were/are the perfect embodiment of all our fears.
Through the Woods captures this feeling of fear and terror, I felt as a kid in the most perfect way. Even though not really centered around the woods, they're still in every story one way or another. Every tale has its own distinctive art style, and different feeling. But they're all so beautifully detailed that it's easy to get lost in them. The panels are cleverly used, and between illustrations of beauty there are drawings of horrors from deep within your nightmares. But still, the horror elements are more subtle, left to flourish in your head rather than graphic. It's like your every childhood fear come to paper.
“I dreamt a Captain dressed in greyI dreamt I wore a long white coatI dreamt a stone caught in my throatI dreamt I chokedand chokedand choked”I recommend this beauty of a book to everyone, that still knows about the now embarrassing things that we feared as a child. This book makes you revisit them and who knows, maybe they weren't so reasonless?
Beautiful and haunting. The perfect fairy tales for adults and brave children.
OH MY GOD! This book was AMAZING! It was creepy and beautiful and everything I could ever want! I tore through it in one sitting, I wouldn't even put it down to talk to a friend.
The Nesting Place has to be my favorite of the collection of stories.
Every story sent chills down my spine.
And every page was beautiful. How she can make such scary creatures both horrifying and magnificent is a testament to her skill.
I am going to FORCE every one of my friends to read this book.
