Monstress – Graphic Novel Review

Monstress, Vol. 1: Awakening by Marjorie M. Liu

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Okay so first let me just say that the plot of this was extremely confusing. We just dive right into the action without any knowledge of what is going on, and chronological order? Yeah, that doesn’t exist here. It was a little hard to keep track of what was happening when and who everyone was, and once I thought I was starting to understand it, I became confused all over again. I still am not quite sure who (and what) everyone is.

That being said, I did really enjoy the characters, especially Kippa the little fox girl and Master Ren the talking cat. Plus Maika was pretty badass, although I would’ve loved to see more of her fighting since everyone says how powerful she is but we don’t quite see that.

I do want to give a content warning for abuse and child trafficking, which is pretty prevalent, especially in the beginning.

As far as the art goes, I loved the art style and the steampunk elements, it is one of the most gorgeous graphic novels I’ve read so far!

All things considered, I do want to pick up the second volume to see where the story goes and to see if we get any more background on who everyone is, and what happened in Constantine because I need to know!