‘The Extraordinary Part: Vol. 1 - Orsay's Hands’ by Florent Ruppert and Jérôme Mulot is a graphic novel about a strange invasion and the people living through it.

Strange fibrous creatures, known as whol, have shown up in France. Appearing as colorful abstract statues, they seem innocuous enough. When a young man named Orsay has an encounter with one, it changes his hands. This leads him to an underground group of people who have also been changed by the whol.

I liked the weird concept and worldbuilding. The art is great. I enjoyed reading this one.

I could not read this volume. I had downloaded it but after some issues with my laptop I lost the copy and when I got my computer back, the title had already been archived.

I hope I can read it in the future so I can edit this review and give a proper one.

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

I was unable to access this unfortunately as item was archived the same day it was approved.this was a huge shame as I was very excited to read it but unfortunately we work with limited tools here at times.

In this graphic novel, our world is populated by creatures called Whole. After meeting one of them, Orsay finds himself with strange powers. Then, he decides to go alone to the capital, Paris, in order to be treated. He then meets different characters who will lead him to question himself: the Wholes should be considered equal to humans?

Before making my review, as I am French, I would like to apologize if some of my comments are difficult to understand and if there are mistakes.

What first attracted me to this graphic novel is its cover. I find it beautiful and intriguing. Thus, I did not read the summary in order not to spoil the surprise and I therefore plunged into this reading without expecting anything from it.

I was surprised about the direction taken by the story. I liked following Orsay in the discovery of Paris as well as on the conditions of treatment of Whole. He makes many meetings which leads him to ask himself questions. Then begins a reflection on what is human and what is not, on what is right and what is not. Obviously there is no real answer on this subject since there are pros and cons. And it's up to everyone to have their own opinion. However, as the story centers more and more around this issue, I expected a potential answer to be given in the end as the character expresses his opinion more clearly.
In addition, the primary reason for why Orsay leaves his home is not mentioned at all towards the end. So the story takes several turns which could be interesting but which, in my opinion, do not come to a conclusion. So I was left hungry for more.
However, I really liked the style of drawing and the atmosphere of this graphic novel. The characters are interesting to follow because none are alike and seeing them together brings several different styles of thought, life and behavior.

If a sequel were to come out I think I will not hesitate because curiosity is stronger than anything.

Thank you Netgalley for sending this book.

In French:
Dans ce roman graphique, notre monde est peuplé de créatures appelés Whole. Après avoir fait la rencontre de l'une d'elle, Orsay se retrouve avec des pouvoirs étranges. Il décide alors de partir seule rejoindre la capitale, Paris, dans le but de se soigner. Il fait alors la rencontre de différents personnages qui vont l'amener à se questionner : les Wholes doivent être considérés comme égaux des humains?

Ce qui m'a premièrement attitré dans ce roman graphique, c'est sa couverture. Je la trouve magnifique et intriguante. Ainsi, je n'ai pas lu le résumé pour ne pas gâcher la surprise et je me suis donc plongée dans cette lecture sans rien en attendre.

J'ai été surprise de la direction prise par l'histoire. Suivre Orsay dans la découverte de Paris ainsi que sur les conditions de traitement des Whole m'a plutôt plu. Il fait de nombreuses rencontres qui l'amene à se poser des questions. Commence alors une réflexion sur ce qui est humain et ce qui ne l'est pas, sur ce qui est juste et ce qui ne l'est pas. Bien évidement il n'y a pas de réelle réponse à ce sujet puisqu'il y a le pour et le contre. Et il revient à chacun d'avoir son avis. Néanmoins, comme l'histoire se concentre de plus en plus autour de cette problématique, je m'attendais qu’une potentielle réponse soit donnée à la fin en tout cas que le personnage exprime plus clairement son opinion.
De plus la raison première pour laquelle Orsay quitte son foyer n'est plus du tout évoquer vers la fin. Ainsi l'histoire prend plusieurs tournures qui pourraient être intéressantes mais qui, selon moi, n'aboutissent pas. Je suis donc restée sur ma faim.
Cependant j'ai beaucoup aimé le style de dessin et l'ambiance de ce roman graphique. Les personnages sont intéressants à suivre car aucun ne se ressemble et les voir ensemble met en confrontation plusieurs styles de pensées, de vie et de comportement différents.

Si une suite venait à sortir je pense que je n'hésiterai pas car la curiosité est plus forte que tout.

Merci Netgalley pour l'envoie de ce livre.

Ep 6 of my reading slump series.

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Trigger Warning: Death, Blood.

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Okay but what is this? I thought this was gonna be some straight up scifi but I was wrong. Some kind of alient creatures came to the world and kind of became friends or civil with some human but then straight up ends up killing them.

I really thought at first after seeing the main character's condition that it was gonna be some another version of Parasyte anime but it was not so I think that's good. That part there had me hooked for a while but afther that, NO.

NOW WHY 1 ⭐.

The characters are so messed up. Like all of them really has some RED FLAG traits with no development LIKE????

Overall, I didn't like this. Not recommened.

Apesar do início interessante e de um visual muito bonito, repleto de cores e que dialogava com o texto a história não me cativou. Em princípio achei bem interessante a ideia de falar de grupos e pessoas/criaturas diferentes se integrando, mas ao se desenvolver achei os argumentos um tanto rasos e acabei desistindo de finalizar a leitura.

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Despite the interesting beginning and a very nice visual, full of colours and that dialogued with the text the story didn't captivate me. At first I thought the idea of talking about different groups and people/creatures integrating was quite interesting, but as it developed I found the arguments a bit shallow and ended up giving up finishing the reading.

A fantasy adventure in form of a graphic novel, with beautifully colorful art style giving of a surreal atmosphere. While the synopsis sounded very intriguing, the story itself however, wasn’t for me.
The behavioral changes the main character went through felt like they came out of nowhere,
Which might have been due to the rather fast pace nature of the plot as well as the at times very odd choice of text formatting.

Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to read and review The Extraordinary Part by Florent Ruppert and Jérôme Mulot.

As often with selecting graphic novels, I first clicked on this one because of the cover. The artwork on the front of Extraordinary Parts drew me in amongst the other covers of ARCs and I wanted to find out more.
I continued to enjoy the artwork within, I really liked the style and think it worked really well with the story.
I personally quite liked the text bubbles looking like handwriting, but I feel like this may be difficult for some to read- for example I know many of my students would find that kind of style difficult or even impossible to read, so unfortunately it isn’t one I would be able to introduce to them.

First things first, I am OBSESSED with everything about this art style! It was the cover that drew me in while scrolling through netgalley and the inner art content did not disappoint! I felt that the handwriting style text did suit the style or the novel and the artwork, however it did become difficult to read at times. While the plot as a whole was an intriguing concept, I did feel that there were some problematic aspects that were grazed over in a somewhat comical matter, when they were in fact quite serious. Overall I enjoyed the artwork more than the storyline and plot, and found the plot to be difficult at times. I found this to be an intriguing and captivating read but I personally can’t see myself continuing the series.

I thought this graphic novel looked interesting but, I’m going to be honest, I did not read the blurb. Hence, when I first encounter the whol, I thought it was just a vision his mum had because she was sick. And then, it became clear that it was just a new and mysterious creature people lived with. Maybe it will turn out to have a deeper meaning like I thought.
Once I understood how the whol worked, and they are pretty cute and beautiful, I quite got into the story. However, it reminded me a lot of Parasyte (the manga) and I’ll have to read the next volume to know how I feel about that. Overall, I think the story is abstract in some ways and that the characters are intriguing, though not the most loveable ones.
I recommend this graphic novel to people who enjoyed Parasyte, and to people who like sci-fi.
Be Aware: there are scenes of people getting killed
3/5

Oh wow this book! When I requested it on Netgalley, I had no idea what to expect. But this book was so enchanting and different (in a good way). It had these weird supernatural stuff roaming around on Earth amongst human called WHOLS. But some of them are going rogue and some people are against them. But public do love these gentle beings and want to save them. Chaos ensues when a boy Orsay gets attacked and his hand turns into a whol. On a journey to find a cure to his hands, he meets new people - some same, some not - falls in and goes on a dangerous adventure filled with sex, murders and running from the law all the while figuring out his new powers and what it means.

It is however very fast paced and has rushing with casual sex. The love does happen way too fast than I was expecting and became an insta-love fest too soon. The pacing was also a bit messy and there were parts that could have been explained a bit properly with more nuance and depth but wasn't. There could be different reasons for this, especially considering that there may be a sequel after how this one ended.

I did enjoy it so I'll be looking forward to the next part to see what happens!

The story is interesting and the illustration is wonderful but the bubble text is is hard to read making the reading experience less enjoyable.

The world is filled with whols. A whol being a new kind of creature, that basically looks like a large to huge molecule model. They sort of slowly move around, don't really interact with humans, at worst are a nuisance by settling down on a road or something.

Except they do sort of interact with humans - Orsay, a young man, touches a whol and finds that his limbs become all weird and stretchy. He goes to Paris to find a cure and meets Basma, a girl who fights for whols' rights.

And then it gets quite strange, and I was quite enjoying the story, until the last third of the book, when people get killed in gruesome and gory ways, and two characters who previously disliked eachother suddenly, out of nowhere, decide to have sex, just because lolol.

Big turn off, for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

This book felt like it was trying very hard to be philosophical in a way that it failed miserably. The art was not interesting in any way, and the text at times was unreadable because of formatting and how small it was written. Would not recommend for any reason. I would love to be able to write more to dissect this book, but this is all I can honestly say about it.

This is absolutely disgraceful!
At first my only issue was that the dialogue was really hard to read as it looked like I had been written in pencil and then badly scanned.
But then we met basma, a woman who has no understanding of boundaries, and repeatedly violates peoples bodily autonomy.
Then is gets even worse as we met Vincento, Melek, and Juliette, who are violent psychopathic serial killers, for a very small amount of time Orsay doesn’t like them but quickly becomes friends with them. Basma as well justifies their actions and thinks it’s perfectly ok to kill people.
At one point Orsay kisses Juliette (who is 13!) and she shows him her boobs, so we can ass pedophila to the list of fucked up things this book promotes.
Towards the end Basma sexually assaults Melek and everyone is perfectly fine with it!?
It’s one thing for a book to portray violent crimes but this book advocates and promotes them, saying that the actions of the characters are completely justified.
This book is vile, who the hell agreed to publish this!

2.5
This book sounded so good, it sounded like everything I could want in a graphic novel and more- but when I read it, it just fell so flat for me and it was a huge disappointment. I don’t usually like giving bad reviews as I know that the process of writing a book and getting it created and published is so difficult, especially with graphic novels because of the time the illustrations and things take- but I have to give this one a bad review.
Firstly, there was no introduction really into the world and its creatures/characters. It’s sci-fi kind of vibe, with these creatures that have individual names/powers/attributes, yet it has no discussions about them. It just drops their names, it was really confusing as I had no idea what it was talking about or any information regarding them. There was no world building at all, not even a brief introduction or even a few pages, which I think is one of the most important things for a book of this genre. I know it is a YA book, so I wasn’t expecting a huge amount of detail- but even a tiny part would have been better than nothing at all. It was the same with the characters, there was no back story or information really, it just jumped straight into the storyline. I had no idea who the characters were, what their lives were like or anything like that. The whole thing just felt flat and kind of rushed to me? It had so much potential, I think if it was revised and these points were elaborated on better- then it could be great, it could be amazing.
One positive that I will say is I loved the illustrations, the vibe was super cool for them and the artist was super talented when it came to these pieces. They were definitely my favourite part out of the entire thing.

Love the illustrations and the story surprised me, too. I was not expecting the plot to be quite layered but this was an amazing experience overall.

I put this down the first time I picked it up just because of how much strain it put on my eyes to try and read the font. Even once I pulled it up on a computer screen I found it difficult to read.

This story is a trip, not a bad trip, but a trip none the less. But it has it's own wholesome level of comradery.

I will say that this was both more graphic and sexual then I had any reason to think it would be.

This starts out really promising but goes way off the rails really fast, with things that happen being left completely unexplained and enormous plot holes that are just completely out of nowhere and unrealistic. Only gave it 2 stars because of the art, honestly.