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cimorene1558's review
3.0
Good! I found the art a little distracting sometimes, but I enjoyed it over all.
saidtheraina's review
4.0
I dug this. I finished it and immediately went "Oh crap" since I put the lid on my list of middle school booktalk books a month or so ago. This feels like a new take on the dystopia genre, mostly fresh in the fact that it's a graphic novel which looks like a [a:Lynda Barry|11646|Lynda Barry|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1197581544p2/11646.jpg] piece.
A diverse trio of kids solve an underground mystery in the bowels of a dystopian city. Cloning, technoethics, environmental politics, family, art in society, and intergenerational friendship all come up. The illustration style is out-of-the-box, the topics are current, the appeal should attract kids who are hot on the [b:Hunger Games|2767052|The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)|Suzanne Collins|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1293504845s/2767052.jpg|2792775] trend.
To me, a lot of the weaknesses other reviewers brought up can be chalked up to the narrative framework. There's a legendary quality here, one that gave me goosebumps at the end.
I kind of wish it was in color to make it pop that much more, but this is solid, and might have to bump something else out of my booktalk lineup for 2012.
A diverse trio of kids solve an underground mystery in the bowels of a dystopian city. Cloning, technoethics, environmental politics, family, art in society, and intergenerational friendship all come up. The illustration style is out-of-the-box, the topics are current, the appeal should attract kids who are hot on the [b:Hunger Games|2767052|The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)|Suzanne Collins|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1293504845s/2767052.jpg|2792775] trend.
To me, a lot of the weaknesses other reviewers brought up can be chalked up to the narrative framework. There's a legendary quality here, one that gave me goosebumps at the end.
I kind of wish it was in color to make it pop that much more, but this is solid, and might have to bump something else out of my booktalk lineup for 2012.
leslie_d's review
2.0
Fiona Smyth’s graphic novel The Never Weres finds its place with the growing catalog of dystopic/post-apocalyptic future young adult novels popular this year. More Science Fiction than Fantasy, Smyth sets her world amidst a world of sophisticated technology and a controversial exploration of cloning; a bit Blade Runner, Children of Men, and Aeon Flux with an after-school special feel tossed in.
The alien figure in the above (& below) image, top left, is “Storybot Sasha” narrating the story. She changes forms depending on the mood/topic of the page, but it is her voice and image that laces throughout as the story shifts between the lives of the three friends. I am still out as to the success of this device. To keep a potentially complicated and lengthy story short, the storybot is useful; and the ending (my Aeon Flux reference) reveals the real audience. Is the narrator too auditory for it visual medium?-was the question with which I contend. It seemed at times as if the two were tripping over one another, coming dangerously close to redundancy.
While I like diverse characters, I find the combination improbable. 3 kids living in 3 different areas with 3 different pervasive interests. Mia has her Art, lives in a family unit of a mom-dad-brother. Xian is orphaned and her brother works off-planet leaving her to her own devices, which is computer and robotics. Jesse lives with his mother, parents divorced, and she’s too busy for him even though they both share a gift and interest in genetics and cloning. As a way of glimpsing into varied scenarios, the trio works. And it isn’t as if they all get along. Xian and Jesse are often in serious argument. Xian sees robots as the future heirs of the planet; Jesse isn’t ready to give up on the idea of human cloning. Mia just wants to pursue Art and humanity, making time to spend time with the elderly.
The mystery of the missing girl is the most intriguing part of the story, and once the setting is established, the story takes off. Who was this girl, why was she so important, and what could she mean to the future of humans and clones? Xian finds a lab, Mia is friends with a cryptic elderly woman, and Jesse’s mother knows something about the whole matter, enough to draw the attention of an Agent hunting down Xian and anyone else who might have information they shouldn’t.
And then the story takes an unexpected turn; which I usually find refreshing–but was it plausible?* Convenient, yes. And this was the point of the story–at the end–that confirmed what I was thinking all along: this book is better suited the younger audience.
The Never Weres is black/white throughout. Smyth provides a lot of fun details and creates a lot of energy in the composition of her pages. There is a lot of movement, and her way of juggling the 3 characters’ lives and development is wonderful; again she is compressing a potentially lengthy narrative into a highly accessible story–for Teens.
L @ omphaloskepsis
http://contemplatrix.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/the-never-weres/
The alien figure in the above (& below) image, top left, is “Storybot Sasha” narrating the story. She changes forms depending on the mood/topic of the page, but it is her voice and image that laces throughout as the story shifts between the lives of the three friends. I am still out as to the success of this device. To keep a potentially complicated and lengthy story short, the storybot is useful; and the ending (my Aeon Flux reference) reveals the real audience. Is the narrator too auditory for it visual medium?-was the question with which I contend. It seemed at times as if the two were tripping over one another, coming dangerously close to redundancy.
While I like diverse characters, I find the combination improbable. 3 kids living in 3 different areas with 3 different pervasive interests. Mia has her Art, lives in a family unit of a mom-dad-brother. Xian is orphaned and her brother works off-planet leaving her to her own devices, which is computer and robotics. Jesse lives with his mother, parents divorced, and she’s too busy for him even though they both share a gift and interest in genetics and cloning. As a way of glimpsing into varied scenarios, the trio works. And it isn’t as if they all get along. Xian and Jesse are often in serious argument. Xian sees robots as the future heirs of the planet; Jesse isn’t ready to give up on the idea of human cloning. Mia just wants to pursue Art and humanity, making time to spend time with the elderly.
The mystery of the missing girl is the most intriguing part of the story, and once the setting is established, the story takes off. Who was this girl, why was she so important, and what could she mean to the future of humans and clones? Xian finds a lab, Mia is friends with a cryptic elderly woman, and Jesse’s mother knows something about the whole matter, enough to draw the attention of an Agent hunting down Xian and anyone else who might have information they shouldn’t.
And then the story takes an unexpected turn; which I usually find refreshing–but was it plausible?* Convenient, yes. And this was the point of the story–at the end–that confirmed what I was thinking all along: this book is better suited the younger audience.
The Never Weres is black/white throughout. Smyth provides a lot of fun details and creates a lot of energy in the composition of her pages. There is a lot of movement, and her way of juggling the 3 characters’ lives and development is wonderful; again she is compressing a potentially lengthy narrative into a highly accessible story–for Teens.
L @ omphaloskepsis
http://contemplatrix.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/the-never-weres/
eden12341's review
adventurous
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
library_brandy's review
2.0
Three 10th-graders--Mia, Xian, and Jesse--are among the last generation on Earth. The Barren virus struck 15 years ago, leaving humanity no way to go on without cloning. Unfortunately, attempts at human cloning have thus far all gone very, very wrong, and subsequent attempts have been outlawed.
Xian's explorations of abandoned tunnels yield a mystery: an odd symbol on walls throughout the tunnels, centered near an abandoned lab. Mia notices the same symbol in old news footage about a missing teenager from 60 years earlier; it's not long before they put the symbol together and know there's a connection between the lab and the missing girl. Jesse and his mom work with genetics, and his mom may know something about the lab near where the symbols are most concentrated. Together the three teens can solve the mystery of the missing girl, and in the process maybe save humanity.
Humanity is slowly sliding into old age; it's been a decade and a half since any new children have been born. It's only a matter of time before humanity disappears. Cloning is the only answer, but the technology to clone humans has stalled somewhere along the way.
The direness of the situation isn't really conveyed by the rather cute artwork. Perfectly fine for middle-schoolers; high school students will probably find a lot of this trite. The captions are provided by a robotic narrator, but the captions are somewhat redundant to the rest of the panels.
Xian's explorations of abandoned tunnels yield a mystery: an odd symbol on walls throughout the tunnels, centered near an abandoned lab. Mia notices the same symbol in old news footage about a missing teenager from 60 years earlier; it's not long before they put the symbol together and know there's a connection between the lab and the missing girl. Jesse and his mom work with genetics, and his mom may know something about the lab near where the symbols are most concentrated. Together the three teens can solve the mystery of the missing girl, and in the process maybe save humanity.
Humanity is slowly sliding into old age; it's been a decade and a half since any new children have been born. It's only a matter of time before humanity disappears. Cloning is the only answer, but the technology to clone humans has stalled somewhere along the way.
The direness of the situation isn't really conveyed by the rather cute artwork. Perfectly fine for middle-schoolers; high school students will probably find a lot of this trite. The captions are provided by a robotic narrator, but the captions are somewhat redundant to the rest of the panels.
izzybookqueen's review
1.0
This book was just toooo weird
And what was with all the illuminati eyes everywhere
It's lucky it even got 1 star cuz the world was sorta cool
And what was with all the illuminati eyes everywhere
It's lucky it even got 1 star cuz the world was sorta cool
amdame1's review
3.0
Dystopian graphic novel where no more children are being born. The youngest people in the world are currently 15 years old. Science is trying to find an answer through cloning, but nothing is working so far. 3 teens unknowingly get caught up in things through their discovery of some equipment and hidden symbols in the underground tunnel system.
kesterbird's review
1.0
you know the old cliche "show, don't tell"? There is... really no excuse to not pull that off in a graphic novel, and yet- here we are. There is one scene where a character is meant to be worried, and in order to MAKE SURE we know, the buildings in the window behind him spell out the word worry. And I know, you're thinking, holy shit, that really is beating me over the head, but it doesn't stop there! The narrator also chimes in to tell us he is worried.
A decent book woulda communicated that with a facial expression on the drawing, but that may have been beyond the artist's skill.
also the story is illogical, at best. SPOILERS AHEAD if the new clones cannot be younger than the cloned person at the time of cloning, that does not help with the problem of an aging population. you just get... more old people.
A decent book woulda communicated that with a facial expression on the drawing, but that may have been beyond the artist's skill.
also the story is illogical, at best. SPOILERS AHEAD