A Dark Tale Told Under A Bright Sky

Talk about your "loss of innocence". Just a few pages into this volume you will start to become unnerved by a sense that dreadful things are going to happen to pretty much every appealing character in the book. The open, and suspenseful, question mostly turns on exactly how dreadful that will turn out to be.

On its face this starts as a tale of a young boy's friendship with three other kids as he settles into his new life in a tiny Italian coast village. Will this be fun and games in the sun, or "Lord of the Flies"? What will happen to Dad's new fishing enterprise? How about the jovial outsider who befriends the family? Is that prepubescent girl an angel or a devil? And what's up with that possibly supernatural gimcrack she found on the sea floor?

The book will keep you off balance right up to the final cliffhanger page of this Part 1. By then everything will have changed, but who knows where the characters will end up? All I know is that I'm eager to find out.

In a way it's the art here that makes the magic work. The dialogue and narrative certainly tell the story well enough. The art is all golden, white, and blue, and seems to promise sun, fun and puppy love. But there's a queasy undercurrent and a sense of menace that flows off the characters. Sometimes it's explicit and sometimes it just lurks in the shadows, but when every time a kid gets in the water you expect a drowning, well, you know you've been hooked.

So, I had no idea what to expect when I opened this up. I certainly didn't expect a sun drenched slightly supernatural bildungsroman. This was a stunner.

(Please note that I had a chance to read a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

Although the colour palette for this graphic novel is gorgeous, and the illustration is mostly very good, the plot is lacking and there are quite a few panels which don't seem to illustrate what they are supposed to - lots of close-ups which are too close to actually identify. This adds to the already quite confusing storyline, which has two primary strands (the tension between industrial and local fishing, and the relationship between the main character and his new friends), but is intercut with random scenes which are not explained. I am a big fan of fragmented and layered narratives, so I am not put off by the structure of the story, but there is very little plot development and when the action finally picks up, the story ends. The ending is not much of a cliffhanger - we can't be left wondering what happens next when barely anything has happened so far! I am not particularly interested in reading the next instalment.
I also found it problematic that the young female character is illustrated topless several times - there is no narrative reason for this, so I question why the male illustrator felt it necessary to focus on an adolescent child's nipples. I expected to like this graphic novel more than I did; I spent the whole time being confused, somewhat uncomfortable, and waiting for something to actually happen, and then it was over.

While the graphics and the cover were great, the story lacked for me. I did not think the cover art and the the story matched at all. I did not enjoy the story at all. From the description, I was hoping for a great story, but what I was left with was not. But I would consider reading the second one.

Thank you, NetGalley and the author for the preview of this Graphic Novel.

Worlds Unseen by Georges Abolin and Olivier Pont had gorgeous artwork and palette, but it fell short on the plot. Just as it started getting interesting, the book was over, Even though it says that there will be another book, this book is not enough to keep me interested to pick the next one.

Whilst the graphics/artwork were brilliant, with gorgeous colour schemes and really easy to follow captions, the story just fell flat for me. Whilst I'm totally okay with nudity and encouraging discussions of sexuality in the younger audiences, I didn't feel entirely comfortable with the main young female character being illustrated nude as it seemed that she was quite young? The ending didn't do it for me either as it just left everything way too open!
Overall, the graphics/artwork are fabulous but the story just didn't do it for me.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

I really struggled with this text. The story, and it's intertwining flashbacks, left me struggling to even figure out what was even the basic plot. On top of it, the PART 1 organization left me wondering what even happened in the story because it seem to end right as I thought I was maybe beginning to understand where the story was going.

In addition to the very confusing plot, there were repeatedly multiple flashbacks from other times in history. To me, these flashbacks didn't seem to ever relate to the text. Even after I have finished the story, I am still at a lost for what was the purpose of those scenes being present in the story in the first place.

As a children's book reviewer, I struggle with stories that push the boundaries regarding sexuality in the story. Yes, sexuality is present, and students need books that help them explore this topic. However, this book seemed to be overly graphic in regards to what is appropriate for the world of children's literature. Often times, the main girl character was illustrated nude. In addition, there was an adult sex scene in the story that was illustrated more graphically than I would deem appropriate.

The greatest asset of this graphic novel are the illustrations. Clearly, the illustrator is very talented. I, however, just did not like the story at all. It is not one I would ever consider to purchase or bring into my classroom,

I received an ARC of this from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This wasn’t quite what I expected when I requested this, but at the same time, I enjoyed it. The artwork was done well and I enjoyed the story. There’s many different layers to this story and this first book only really scratches the surface. There’s so many questions left unanswered and I’m very curious to find out.

Looking forward to the next in the series.

Worlds Unseen surely has some bad vibe going on and it's perfect! It's 1906 and William moves from London to Italy with his family to their inherited house. He meets a girl named Lisa and their family has to overcome the hate of the villagers. Fishing is a tough business and lives and property are lost before nothing is even settled. Lisa and some other boys invite William to smoke weird herbs so that they feel like they are some other people in some other time. This mystery is somehow linked to the fact that all the kids were born on the same day. Such a mystery! I really enjoyed the plot and how hazy and hard to understand it is. The looming darkness is surely something else and you feel sick when reading this (but in a good way).

The characters are so different to one another and the art looks beautiful and round even, which makes this an odd one surely. The colors fit so perfectly with the Italian countryside feeling and the dream-like happenings are rich in red and orange. I'm quite interested in knowing what happens next and somehow this comic proves once again how people are wolves to each other. The comic reminded me of Daytripper a lot. This is awesome!

I am sorry to say this was not for me. The story itself is confusing and disjointed and I had no idea what was going on.

Unfortunately the synopsis sounded good but the story did not follow through. The art style was ok but again the cover which caught my interest just didn't seem to resonate throughout the rest of the graphic novel. Lots of unnecessary nudity in my opinion and these were the parts that really added nothing to the story. Overall colour changes in sections did not help and just made everything feel more messy.

Again not for me and I cannot reccomend.

I received this comic from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.
Since, I have no clue what this was about, I will just write a tiny review.. This is about a family who moves to Italy and the idyllic life they hope to lead and how the village people aren't too kind at times (and later on things escalate, holy crap people what the hell is wrong with you?), and it is also about their son who makes friends with 3 from the village. They are all born on the same day (yes, awesome right?) and we see them try to be friends (and using drugs), but two of the boys are getting influenced by their dads from the village (who aren't keen on new people).
In between the story there are some kind of other story?? It just came out of nowhere and I didn't know what they meant or why they were added. People die? Um?
And the ending? Whut? Well, this wasn't for me. Not at all. So no, I am not going to be reading this one further.

Unfortunately this was not a book for me. I thought I would be able to connect to it and liking it since the description sounded very intriguing.

The art was alright I did appreciate it but did not love it. The sex scenes I did not enjoy and found them no child friendly. The whole story was confusing and I missed what the author is trying to get across. I did have an issue with sexualizing children as well in some scenes. Hence my 1 star rating..

This is pretty good. Very strong artwork and layout with a solid story and characters. I'm big on cliff hangers but this seems to be the trend most graphic novels. Recommended for those seeking a "straight" story (little violence or fantasy-type elements).

I really appreciate the advanced copy for review.

3 STARS

As far as art is concerned, Worlds Unseen is a good book. I liked the drawings and the strong colors that reminded me of the South of Italy.

Unfortunately, the story is very confusing. I know that there will be another part and maybe everything will be explained, but in this book the reader doesn't really understand what are those worlds unseen, who sees them and what's their precise link with the protagonists. The story seems to go in a completely different direction from the flashes of the "other worlds" we see. But, as I said, this is just the first part.
Moreover, I think that the story maybe wanted to also be a narrative of fear and hatred of anything foreign (people, progress, etc...), but the authors have built it in a way that felt a little bit stereotyped.

All in all, this book is not what I was expecting.

Reviewing this will be quite hard as I don't think this was the book for me.

Graphic-wise, it was great! I loved the drawings, I really, really liked the colors, the technique... The pace of the action, as much as there is an action to talk about, was again very good.

The downside of this book is that it is very confusing. I had to read and read again to understand whose lines was I reading as it kept changing the point of view. Some elements either didn't have their place in the story or they were too deep for me to understand, i am NOT excluding this possibility. We have a God talk in the middle of the book without connection to what happened before or after and so it felt like the author just wanted to let people know he was an atheist ( maybe he is a christian, I don't know, but by the way this was placed and how it wasn't connected to anything, it felt like just one point the author wanted to make ).

In the beginning I thought this was for children but then here are some very explicit sex scenes which I would surely not show a child.

Again, I was confused at the lack of explanations. I don't like to be given very detail on a platter but what was the deal with that stone/ object? What were they smoking? What is with the flash-backs/ red scenes? Why was it important that the children were born on the same day? Much of the plot was based on elements we never get to read about... I think that if the story went a bit more in detail on these subjects it would have been great, as they are very interesting ones which capture your attention and make you read further. Maybe they will be explained in the next parts of the story, but I would have liked to be told that.. Maybe by mentioning that stone/object, maybe by giving some hints.. . I want authors to make me assume things, to make me guess, to throw some challenges. If they do that, I will WANT to read the next books to see... was I right? was I wrong? What was that actually?

There was almost no character development. The story gave us some very fascinating characters and it created a good conflict which could have been exploited. I would have liked to get to know the children, the parents, the villagers. From what I got from the story, I was made to assume Italians are savages, dream wrecking evil men with nothing else to do but set fire to ships and hurt good, English business men. Is that the correct message? I dare say no.

I know this is part of a series, but the confusion level in this part 1 doesn't make me want to continue with it...

I see great potential in this story but as it is now, I cannot rate it, sadly, very high. I write honest reviews and that means sometimes saying something was not good.

This is a beautifully crafted graphic novel. I'll be recommending this one and looking for more from this author for sure.