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BookDragon Blog

28 Sep / The Autumnal: The Complete Series by Daniel Kraus, illustrated by Chris Shehan, color by Jason Wordie, lettering by Jim Campbell [in Booklist]

*STARRED REVIEW
Kat Somerville will never win any ­mother-of-the-year awards. She shows up at the principal’s office black-eyed after her 7-year-old daughter, Sybil, bloodied another kid’s nose; rather than any admonishments, Kat brings Sybil a Stephen King novel.

The rebellious pair abandon not only the school but Chicago, headed to Comfort Notch, New Hampshire, where Kat’s estranged mother recently died. Kat spent her first nine years in Comfort Notch, “Home of America’s Prettiest Autumn,” until her mother inexplicably threw her out 25 years ago.

After an initially rough ­adjustment – Kat’s not the trusting type – kindness seems to be the town motto. They’ve been gifted a car, they inherit a house, and Sybil is happy. But Kat’s not wrong: strange memorials, eerie shadows, those endless leaves … and then Sybil comes home with the name “Clementine” on her lips, and suddenly Kat is starting to “remember things.” Corpses (past and present) are multiplying, and Kat needs answers fast as death encroaches.

Bestselling Dan Kraus makes his graphic debut with another terror-inducing narrative, brilliantly visualized by Chris Shehan and Jason Wordie (lettered by Jim Campbell). The full-color, saturated artwork never slows down, the unpredictable panels constantly in motion as if unable to hold the story back. The petrifying horror won’t be contained – “She grows. She waits.”

Review: “Graphic Novel,” Booklist, September 15, 2021

Readers: Adult

Published: 2021

By Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Repost Tags > Autumnal, Betrayal, BookDragon, Booklist, Chris Shehan, Daniel Kraus, Family, Friendship, Horror/Ghost story, Identity, Jason Wordie, Jim Campbell, Love, Mother/daughter relationship, Parent/child relationship, Series, Series: Autumnal
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