Review: From Hell

From Hell by Alan Moore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

To be upfront, I'm not even that big of a fan of Alan Moore. 'Fan' implies that their love of the art/artist allows someone to overlook its flaws as to not forsake their enjoyment. For example, a 'Star Wars Fan' overlooks the fact that it's ultimately a film franchise that hasn't produced a good movie since 1980. While I consider Moore to be an insanely talented writer, there is a worship of him that is completely unwarranted. He is not a god. He's a demigod at best.

That being said, "From Hell" might be his best full graphic work. "Watchmen" will always be his most culturally significant work, but, to be honest, I've always been a dissenter when it comes to its accolades as the "greatest comic book ever". "From Hell" is more about a flawed humanity than flawed heroes and the driving plot doesn't force the book to contradict itself. I just feel Moore is at his best here, if anything else, at least on the technical level.

Even though the details of the plot are very much fiction, it incorporates several facts about the White Chapel murders. The particulars around Leather Apron being the most important. Technically meaning this story is a half-truth, making it that much more convincing. Though I wouldn't use this book as a reference if you're doing a paper on the subject.

I had mixed feelings about the art. It comes off as rough and inconsistent when you're first introduced to it. However, over time, it grew on me and I realized there was no other style better than what is used. The shifts from blobs of shade to well-flushed out faces are gradual and are used to great effect. Also, the nine-panel page format is the best and most natural way to tell a story in graphic novel form. You can fight me on that if you wish, but you'll lose.

If you're at least in your thirties (this book might be too much if you're any younger than that), you should already be reading this book. It's a great insight into one of the most gruesome stories of the western world. Its theory into the identity of Jack the Ripper is too complex to be true, but it's definitely the most interesting take you'll ever come across.

View all my reviews

Review: The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I honestly wanted to like this book. It's been on a to-read list for a while and on my mind whenever I was picking what to read next. I finally got around to it and now I wonder what made me want to read it in the first place. It was definitely sold based on its context rather than its content. I can't think of another explanation.

Bottom line, this book just isn't well written. Almost in every aspect of the term. In the ways of prose, it just isn't creative. And, every time it does try to be, it fails to ascend beyond the rudimentary. Intellectually, it lacks in a way that feels like an insult considering the subject. The book is 100% what is going on and has no interest or ability to explain the hows and whys.  Both in terms of social dichotomy and the science involved. Even on a technical level, it seems to lack in grammar and sentence structure. It'll succeed in a spell check with Microsoft Word, but that doesn't mean the writing succeeds beyond a juvenile manner. There are just too many ways to point out how this book isn't good.

There is a point where the book says "These are pieces of my jawbone. I pulled them from my jaw." (Sorry if this isn't a 100% perfect quote, but I didn't feel like looking it up.) I just remember this because I had to put down the book and rub my temples for five minutes. I mean, where else would you pull pieces of your jawbone from? Your elbow? It's just a key example of how poor the writing is. Sorry for the rant. It's been on my mind since I read it and, if I didn't write about it, it would turn into a brain tumor and kill me.

While I wanted to like this book, I still didn't hate it by its end. If someone asks me if I would recommend it, it would a profound 'hell no'. It isn't bad in a sense I felt it was a gross adaptation of the art, rather that the narrative needed a complete rewrite. The perspective and focus on certain details detract from any emotional impact and might have been served better by a character throughline and/or a strong POV. Rather than the foggy overview, this book ended up being. It's not the story I disliked as much as how it was written. If that makes any damn sense. 

View all my reviews

Review: Finder

Finder by Suzanne Palmer
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I don't even feel like doing a full review of this book. It isn't bad. If it was bad I could get mad at it. In fact, it's worse than bad. It's dull, uninspired, stale, and insipid to the point I want to get out the thesaurus to find even more words for uninteresting. It's competently written in the sense that everything is spelled correctly, its grammar gets an A+, and you know what is going on at all times. But writing is more than just stringing a bunch of words together. There's a missing humanity to this book that you would get even from a badly remembered acid flashback. This book checks all the boxes for structure, character definition, and a host of other things that I harp on other books for not doing as well. However, even though it does all those other things right, it fails at the most important aspect of any book. This isn't a story worth telling.

View all my reviews