Summer 2019 (Hugo Award Nominee 2019 - Graphic Novel);

(3.5)

Copying this part from reading Volume 2 yesterday, as it hasn't changed -- I still want to give this series four hundred stars just for the art (and it is part of why even with a 3.5 I went up rather than down). It's just so gorgeous. I have a very judgey aesthetic need where it comes to art, and 90% of the time comics will never reach it (and even a perfect story I will dock a star from for that because this is a conglomeration between a visual media and a written one).

First and foremost I realized the inner narration of our Halfwolf moved from being the daughter addressing her dead mother and moved into her addressing Tuya. To discussing and addressing a different amalgam of emotions through those narrations much along the way of remorse, regret, and lingering love (especially as shown through the memories and dreams).

I continue to like changeable and uncertain nature of 'The Betrayer' who keeps being told they did things in the past they refuse they ever did, making us question what all it does remember, has forgotten, and how reliable it is or isn't when it speaks, where is aspires to, and what the actual ends of this painful partnership between may honestly be leading.

I still think there are maybe too many characters, and that there definitely are too many female characters with long black hair and half-shown faces, making it confusing and giving it a little too much ease to confuse those ones. I am definitely still here for the rest of this entire story from its beginning to end. ( )

I’m having a few problems keeping track of all the players, but I’m still loving this. Kippa is such a breath of sweetness in the midst of all the grim warnings and bloody battles. I love that she has hope for everyone, even Zinn. The artwork, as always, is gorgeous, regardless of what it’s depicting.

Please come out soon, volume 4! ( )

4.5 stars

I LOVE THIS SERIES! It seems my gaydar is on point as always — I knew there was (had been?) something between Maika and Tuya! Can’t wait to see what happens when Maika learns about that betrayal… Finally, more of Zinn’s past was revealed! Love the development of Zinn’s relationship with Maika — they make a great (and crazy-powerful) team! That cliffie, though! ( )

Having read vol. 2 now more than a year ago I have totally lost the thread of the story from book to book and don't remember the characters. I picked up some of it as I read but still...it would be nice to have the previous volumes to refer to but they are library books and I don't own them.

That said, the artwork continues to be brilliant and I liked the storyline. These are good fun to read and of the manga/graphic novels I have read so far, these are the most interesting to me. ( )

I'm not entirely sure what I just read, and I don't mean that in wow-that-was-far-out-man kind of way.

By the third volume of any series, I should have a decent grasp of the world I'm temporarily occupying in my imagination, but I don't. Monstress is ambitious in its world building, and I love that about it, but it's not solidifying anything in my mind due to some combination of the following:

- While I generally love Takeda's artwork, in this volume it wasn't always clear what I was looking at and that made it hard to follow the action, characters, plot, etc.
- Some of the spreads are frantic/incoherent and just don't scan well on the page
- I'm all for complexity, but the history of this world isn't coming together in a holistic way for me, and I think it's because we get ambiguous snippets here and there in the story, and then a text-dump from Professor Tam Tam at the end, and the two aren't coalescing for me

Still, I'm invested, and won't be able to live without resolving that cliffhanger, so volume 4 here I come... ( )