Tuesday, May 5, 2009

The Three Incestuous Sisters: An Illustrated Novel

I stumbled upon The Three Incestuous Sisters while I was at my favourite bookstore maybe about two weeks ago. What attracted me to the book was the title and the fact that it was written by the same author of The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger. I read The Time Traveler’s Wife not long ago and absolutely loved it and this was one of the reasons why I decided to pick up The Three Incestuous Sisters.
Niffenegger took 14 years to develop this book...14 years! And it only took me ten minutes to get through the whole book. Niffenegger calls The Three Incestuous Sisters a visual novel which is (apparently) completely different from a graphic novel. Can anyone tell me what the difference is? The book features illustrations which is quite gothic in style. The story is mostly told through the illustrations itself and the text available is very minimal.

The storyline itself is nothing to shout about revolving around three sisters; each with their own special qualities. Feelings of jealousy and acts of hatred and revenge over one sisters love affair tears the three sisters apart but love brings the family together again in the end. The story is simple and overall easy to follow and definitely a quick read. The illustrations and the little text that was available was clear enough to make one understand the storyline.

Did I like it? In all honesty, I can’t decide though I did find some of the illustrations featured quite beautiful. Such genre is new to me and I find it hard to appreciate the work in totality. All I can say is that I ended the book with one word in mind –unusual.

Should you read it? Why not? It only takes a few minutes to go through the book and I think you’ll find that not only is the author a talented writer (if you’ve read The Time Traveler’s Wife that is) but also a talented artist.

To read my review of The Time Traveler’s Wife, please click here.

3 comments:

Drachen said...

I guess the book is not for kids?

Unknown said...

No definitely not. I was thinking that maybe it would make a nice coffee table book.

Amanda said...

I was told the difference was this was more of a picture book than a graphic novel, which involves a lot of frames, dialog, and plot developement. I read this one before The Time Traveler's Wife and really just didn't get it. Some of the illustrations were pretty, but mostly I just didn't like the book. Then again, I didn't end up like the Time Traveler's Wife either, unlike the majority of the population...

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