Note: I received access to read this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Our Alchemical Bodies is difficult to follow. It's navelgazey to a fault and objectifies its characters. The artwork can be effective but the time spent in the abstract is so much that its impact is dulled.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for giving me access to the advanced copy of this book to read.

Made it through this only because I needed to complete it so I could give a review. I hated it.
All the transphobia, misogyny, violence, sexual coercion and body horror were just too much. Why is EVERY relationship I see depicted in French comics always violent? What is wrong with Europe seriously? Yeesh!

The story follows three ex-lovers, Aniss, Camille, and Sarah, who are reunited at Camille's behest to pursue his research and lead the "revolution of the mind," which refers to the titular "alchemy" and is, in fact, just porn. The story itself is a slow burn, and there is almost no plot. It felt like the plotline was merely an excuse for many erotic scenes and threesomes since the characters, apart from being deeply toxic and unhealthy for each other, make no sense as individual couples nor as a polyamorous relationship. There are many scenes of physical and emotional abuse, body horror, and the constant misgendering of Camille by Aniss.

Weirdly, apart from the grotesque scenes, one of the things that bugged me the most was how eyelashes and tears were drawn. The eyelashes are drawn like short hair, and the tears seem more like rivers, which only added to the body horror aspect of the entire book. The colors used are complimentary and very neutral, which didn't fit with the storyline or the scenes depicted.

I'm sure there's an audience for this book, but I'm finding it hard to say anything positive about this reading experience.

Ep 7 of my reading slump series.


Trigger Warnings: Blood, Toxic relationship AND MORE.

Okay BUT WHAT IS THIS? This book seemed to have plot and somehow has an interesting premise but I WAS WRONG.

My advice, don't read this.

NetGalley ARC Educator 550974

If you could merge with others and become one, would you? Take the journey with our main characters and be transformed. Amazing art and provocative storyline.

I truly wish that I could rate different aspects of this separately rather than one overall rating! I absolutely adored the artwork and style of this and would love to see more from this author/illustrator! However, I unfortunately found the storyline hard to follow in this graphic novel and wound up getting confused or lost on several occasions which therefore lead to my rating.

This is not a book for everybody. An attempt has been made, remains to be seen how it''ll be received by the readers. This is a book about metaphysical exploration of three characters. I found the artistic style a tad disturbing and jarring and I suspect that it could have been the intended effect, hence the effort could be deemed as successful.
I must confess I probably am not capable enough to understand concepts in this book. It was too much mumbo-jumbo for my tastes.

This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review

Frankly this book needs a trigger warning
There's is a lot of sexual content, body trauma and mutilation

The story follows three people, Aniss, Camille and Sarah in a connection but Camille wants their relationship to go a step further. She decides they should enjoin and become one creation.

I didn't enjoy reading this and I struggled to finish reading it.
But in essence it's important we discover who we are internally that's what Our Alchemical Bodies really focuses on

The file did not work and I couldn't read this book.
I am very sad about that because it looked amazing and I heard great thing about it.

Our Alchemical Bodies is quite weird, like a long trip that circles around itself. It was surely interesting, but keeps repeating same patterns for loo long for my liking. Camille invites her friends and lovers to her place, Aniss and Sarah, since she wants them to see her new revelation of being in the universe and how these three need to be one in order to exist. It's a long and weird study of the self and they all need to find how they can be one both mentally and physically. The face sucking and molding were suffocating, but somehow beautiful too. In a sense the comic is very interesting and I liked the whole idea and it was nicely gross too, which was refreshing. Perhaps the whole thing was too much over the top though as the story couldn't hold ground enough.

The art looks great and works well with the weird and oddly disgusting world. The soft color theme is wonderful and the rage and suffering are smudgy as a comparison. Such an odd comic, but definitely something else. Slightly too long though as it cannot pull the idea fully through, but still.

TW: Body horror, sexual content, blood, toxic relationship, infertility, miscarriage, abortion, mental illness, transphobia (and possibly more).

I had an incredibly hard time starting this book, initially when I tried to read it the document was empty and honestly by the end I wish I hadn't ever gone back and looked to see if it had been updated.

This starts out weird, and goes into a level of... Insanity(?) that I had pegged only for Junji Ito. But this book holds none of the grace I've found in Ito's works. Where some of the horror can be found in the things that we aren't shown, but what's implied.

I have a specific panel saved to my desktop from before I found out where this would go, when I thought that this was going to be some commentary on a Toxic Relationship. Oh I was so naieve then.

I am honestly hardpressed to find a positive quality to this book, and in the end all I can come up with is that it had a trans nonbinary character with representation. But they are constantly misgendered throughout this book.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Relationship abuse, mental illness, attempted murder/drowning, suicide attempt, gore, body horror, surgery, scars from top surgery, body dysmorphia, deliberate misgendering, transphobia, very heavy on sexual themes, pregnancy loss/baby having defects, grief and loss, broken family and challenging childhoods.

I'm honestly so confused having finished this. I really didn't understand what was going on throughout most of this but kept going in the hopes everything would become clear but no. I think the best way to review this is to list some things I liked and disliked...

Liked:
- The trans/bi/pan rep
- Polyamory rep
- Discussion surrouding gender/body dysmorphia
- Seeing the top surgery be discussed and that Camille was seen throughout the story topless with his scars showing
- The use of flames/fire being used to show Aniss' anger

Disliked:
- The manipulation/uncomfortable feeling I got seeing this relationship. It didn't ever really feel like it was for anything other than to explore sex (not a problem if everyone consents to that but I personally don't really like to see it)
- The murder attempts - as I was already struggling to follow the story, these just seemed to come out of nowhere and not really make any sense
- The constant deliberate misgendering of Camille by Aniss who had the attitude that Camille was a girl when I knew them so they remain a girl forever regardless of their identity and feelings
- The characters in general. I never felt connected to any of them and didn't see how they ever really could work together as a group/relationship as they all differed so much and there didn't seem to be chemistry between them
- During the scene where Aniss tears out his eyeballs, he starts to follow the entity blindly, and says "wait for me. I'm crippled. Wait for me. I'm weak". Could just be more over-reading this, but this just didn't sit well with me in relation to being blind and I feel like it sends a negative message out.

Neutral:
- The body horror/gore. For me personally I don't mind more gruesome/dark imagery in graphic novels, but I don't really see why it was needed and why it was a a part of the plot (e.g. Aniss tearing his eyes out as part of their unity).
- At times I felt like this was going too much into the science around the binding of them in a way that didn't make sense (at least to me). This just ended up pulling me further out of the story
- I didn't really like the art style (this is completely just a personal preference but just wanted to mention it in my review). I feel like the cover artwork seems a lot different (especially the people) in comparison to the art of the story.

I'm rather conflicted on what to rate this book....honestly, I don't really know if I like it or not? I didn't really like the art style (Although this is subjective), but I did feel like the art represented the story well? Maybe I'm just not smart enough but all the philosophy talk went over my head. I did like that there's a lot of queer rep, as well as a polyamorous relationship. I didn't really care for the characters that much though. It was like I was just reading passively and sometimes I wished things moved at a faster space. The plot was sometimes confusing. The writing itself is really lovely and poetic though.

This comic was, interesting. I appreciated the art and the representation of gender and sexuality, but overall so much was missing. The narrative and idea for the story was interesting, but it needed more to connect everything together. Most parts made little sense, and I found myself confused rather than enjoying the story. Not really my cup of tea but I think anyone who likes really surreal narratives may enjoy this to some extent.

TW strong body horror, mentions of transphobia and misgendering, attempted murder and drowning, grotesque horror, blood

I’m just so meh about this story? As an artist myself I appreciate the art but the story itself needed a lot more refining and explain. This had a lot of potential.

Sometimes boring and left me (constantly) confused.

The cover is really pretty, but the art in the book is just… off putting. Really hard for me to focus and get into the story. I also have no idea who the targeted audience is for this. But I’m sure I am not.

It wasn’t all that bad though. The story, although confusing at times, was pretty interesting and entertaining.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Our Alchemical Bodies by Thomas Gilbert is an innovative fantasy / horror graphic novel about forbidden magic. The story revolves around three characters: Camille, Sarah, and Aniss. Camille has invited Sarah and Aniss to visit her in Tuscany. Camille has dark plans to perform an unnatural feat of alchemy. She plans on fusing three souls and three bodies into one. This plot point may remind you of an awful horror movie. I'm not sure if that was what the creator was intending to evoke or if there is a basis in alchemical texts for this kind of fusion. Since I know next to nothing about alchemy, I have no idea what inspired this graphic novel.

Overall, Our Alchemical Bodies has an interesting premise and a lot of potential for an excellent story.
Unfortunately, I found the art style and content of the book to be very off-putting and freaky. I'm sure that the creator intended for the bulging eyes and frowning faces to match the weird tone of the book. The story itself involves alchemy, so I should have expected it to be somewhat weird. However, I just did not enjoy the creepy images of nudity and body horror. I am giving this book a 1 star rating, because I wasn't expecting to be so freaked out while reading this book. I found it hard to concentrate on the story, and I ended up DNFing halfway through because I could not take any more grotesque images. If you're intrigued by the synopsis above, or if you're a fan of metaphysical graphic novels, you can check out this book, which is out in bookstores now!

Ugly look at a trans-gender person who inveigles two old friends (one of who hates him/her/it) to visit a professor's Italian mansion, where some modern day John Dee waffle and a once-per-ten-thousand-years solar flare will inspire a new gender, or something. Like heck it will, or not in my reading time.

Generally speaking I neither loved this or hated it. The art style was the first thing that caught my eye and it's definitely a strong positive for me, I caught myself several times just admiring the amazing shapes of the panels/characters. In terms of the characters I am actually very pleased with how they are presented individually and how much we get to know about them. The characters own journey into self discovery, dealing with their traumas and who they truly are fills most of the story. I personaly took most of the plot metaphorically and that is probably the best way to look at it. Would recommend to anyone who is interested in a more philosophical aproach about oneself, however be aware of a very fair amount sexual content and body horror.