The Marvels by Brian Selznick

The Marvels by Brian Selznick
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

Hardcover, 665 pages
Published September 15th 2015 by Scholastic Press
Source: local library

I was hooked until the text part of the book met up with the illustrated part then he lost me. As the story proceeded to unravel and reveal I found myself disappointed, dissatisfied and eventually becoming bored. The first half of the story is tense and exciting, the illustration is, of course, outstanding, but the expected climax is not worth the build-up. The twist is dull and silly. The whole time I felt like I was reading about an old man

This book is different from his first two in that it is written in two separate blocks. First comes the almost 400 pages of wordless illustration then comes a block of almost 200 pages of text, finishing with a short section of illustration. When I first saw this I thought this might annoy me rather than the switching back and forth of the previous books but it didn't at all. It read fast and it still works this way; it's just a boring plot and quite melodramatic at times too. 2.5 stars actually.

PS, This isn't a graphic novel by definition. I wouldn't even call it a hybrid, but it was nominated in this category. If I was a librarian I would shelve it with juvenile fiction, plain and simple.