DNF. Not worth reading. ( )

*Received via NetGalley for review*
Artemisia is the illegitimate mixed-race daughter of a naval captain, shunned by her family and destined for a life of more of the same. When the Unseelie queen appears in her mirror and switches places with her, Art is now in the fairy world while the queen wears her skin and plans to conquer the new world she finds herself in.

She meets a creature that offers to be her guide back home... for a price. One fond memory later, Art finds herself unraveling and forgetting why she wants to return home in the first place, slashing and killing all manner of creatures in order to grow powerful enough to defeat the queen. Art struggles against the darkness for a little bit, but is unceasingly drawn in.

Of course, this may not be the case. We learn almost immediately that her companions are manipulating her and, while not outright lying, disguising the truth in order to direct her to their goals. The Unseelie queen could be someone who went through something similar, but at the point of their meeting, Art is too far gone to care.

A truly beautiful and engaging graphic novel. The color palette is gorgeous, as are the characters (who are also all unique and well-realized), and the story leans hard into the mischievous and cruel nature of fairies. ( )

It's an exaggerated shoulder shrug from me...

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through NetGalley.)

Artemisia - "Art" for short - is the illegitimate daughter of a British Naval Captain and one of the indigenous women he colonized and enslaved. After her birth, Captain Grey kidnapped Artemisia and brought her back to his home in Victorian England, where she was begrudgingly "accepted" into the family. (As a servant, natch.) When Art's half-sister Elizabeth is killed just before she's to be wed to a Duke, thus snatching the Greys from the jaws of poverty, Mrs. Grey insists that Artemisia be auctioned off in Elizabeth's place. It's either agree to her stepmom's demands, or see her younger sister Caroline given to a seventy-year-old Baronet. It's kind of like Cinderella, except mom doesn't give a shit about her biological daughters, either.

And then Artemisia's problems go from bad to worse when she's pulled into another realm by none other than the Faerie Queen herself. In turn, the Queen assumes Artemisia's visage, with the intent of conquering earth. The only way that Art can get back to her world is by killing Faerie creatures to grow her own power and glamor. Can she slay the beast by becoming one herself? Does she even want to save earth, when her one good memory of it has been stripped away?

The "teen Victorian fairy fight club" descriptor is what really piqued my interest, but the actual story falls way short of this. Some of the finer plot points, like Warren's relationship to Art, the significance of the flower, and just which memory Crispin traded Art for, are hecka confusing. I'm still not 100% sure I know what was going on there. The action only half kept my interest, at best. While there are quite a few fight scenes, the match-ups are uneven and so the battles are over before they even begin. (Fight Club? More like Rambo.)

Honestly, the only redeeming things are a) the artwork, which is moody and gorgeous and b) the ending, which is just deliciously perfect in a Twilight Zone kind of way.

http://www.easyvegan.info/2019/08/23/sparrowhawk-by-delilah-s-dawson/ ( )

Ehhhh. This story fills half formed. A girl is pulled through a mirror into the fae world, where inorder to return to her world she must gain power by killing. But she becomes a killing machine. Killing for the sake of power instead of seeing the beauty of the world she is in, or listening to the right people. She listens to a creature who can not lie to her, but can also trick her with the truth. She kills indiscriminately. As to the artwork, I like the cover and alternate cover illustrations much more than the illustrations in the panels. Overall this is a blah for this reader who will not be picking up any sequels. ( )