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A review by kandicez
Chess Rumble by G. Neri
3.0
I checked this out of the library expecting a comic. It WAS shelved with the comics and graphic novels after all. That's not what I got. It's illustrated, and there's an ongoing narrative, but I think it's a poem. The naration appeared in verse, anyway, and I found that distracting. Not rhyme, just verse, in columns on the pages.
Anyone could see where this was going. A young man, living in a bad neighborhood, loses a sister and his father in very quick succesion. He becomes a discipline problem, and because of his large size, a physical threat. He can't control the anger that sparks his temper and seems to have a first class ticket to juvenile hall. Chess saves him.
As predictable as it was, G. Neri got the dialogue exatly right. I just read [b:On Writing|10569|On Writing|Stephen King|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166254200s/10569.jpg|150292] by Stephen King, and he says portraying real speech, let alone dialects, accents and colloquialisms is very, very hard. Neri did that perfectly here. I could actually hear the words being said. Maybe not the voices, but the words were written the way they would sound, not the way they would appear courtesy of spell-check. The slang was understandable, but helped to create my idea of just who this kid was.
Jesse Watson's illustrations were beautiful. Mostly black and white, elaborate shading and a tiny touch of color where black and white just weren't quite enough. The characters were brought to life, and his drawings of chess pieces were beautiful, even if they were only the plastc $5.99 starter sets.
Anyone could see where this was going. A young man, living in a bad neighborhood, loses a sister and his father in very quick succesion. He becomes a discipline problem, and because of his large size, a physical threat. He can't control the anger that sparks his temper and seems to have a first class ticket to juvenile hall. Chess saves him.
As predictable as it was, G. Neri got the dialogue exatly right. I just read [b:On Writing|10569|On Writing|Stephen King|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166254200s/10569.jpg|150292] by Stephen King, and he says portraying real speech, let alone dialects, accents and colloquialisms is very, very hard. Neri did that perfectly here. I could actually hear the words being said. Maybe not the voices, but the words were written the way they would sound, not the way they would appear courtesy of spell-check. The slang was understandable, but helped to create my idea of just who this kid was.
Jesse Watson's illustrations were beautiful. Mostly black and white, elaborate shading and a tiny touch of color where black and white just weren't quite enough. The characters were brought to life, and his drawings of chess pieces were beautiful, even if they were only the plastc $5.99 starter sets.