Long Time No See Sis…

 

Mae Vol. 1

Grade: C+

*I received a copy from Netgalley for an honest review. 

Mae’s sister Abbie has been gone for years when she shows up out of the blue one night with a tall tale. Mae and her friend Dahlia don’t exactly believe her until it turns out she’s being chased by strange creatures who attack them and snatch Mae and Abbie’s father taking him through a portal into a whole other world.

This book has a lot of potential and I liked the art including the look of the other world and creatures and I do love me a good story about sisters. There’s also some fun pop culture references here and there. I always enjoy them and I don’t think it got to be too much.

Speaking of pop culture references there was this bit with Mae taking a fake fanboy to task that got the point across.

But I did feel like this little note about representation in fantasy being lily white (while an excellent point) tripped me up. It felt a little self-congratulary with the whole well, that’s just crazy and what seems like a cheeky look on Mae’s face. Mainly because the two sisters look white to me and I didn’t see anything so particularly impressive about the representation here that it deserves a pat on the back.

Though it is volume one so that could definitely change as the series goes on. Still like I said it tripped me up and not in a good way.

I was also confused a lot even though my copy actually had a glossary in the back which I wish I knew before I started reading. It’s not something I expected and I got to tell you it was a pretty large glossary of things to remember. Also there’s a bit with Mae’s phone that was confusing likely it will be fleshed out further but it wasn’t a oh, hey what’s going on here kind of confusion more of a I must have missed something important? Did I?

Recommend: Eh. Like I said I can see the potential but I might wait for the series to get further and see how it goes before I continue on with it.