A wordless fantasy

It's incredible how much emotion was packed into this four-volume story! I read it following an excited recommendation by a friend, but also lead by my curiosity about a wordless story. I knew that the lack of words will have to be balanced with strong visuals, but the vivid colors and intriguing story exceeded my expectations.

This story is about growth, pain, love, care, guidance, frustration, illusion, betrayal, loss, and then finding your own mission and path.

I loved the contrast between the dynamics of some frames followed by the peacefulness of landscapes spanning across full two pages. The pace at which the reader is given clues about the direction of the story is quite well set. The contrasting warm and cold colors and their fullness on the slightly textured semi-gloss paper is stunning. The story will keep you engaged until the very end and stick with you beyond its pages.

The extra bits in the end were also fun! I've never before read how stories are drafted for illustration and I found it interesting to get a peek at the development process.

I'd say that the target audience does have to be somewhat mature in age and in an independent stage in their life to fully appreciate this storyline. If you're not at least as old as the heroine around the last few pages of the story, you might not love it as much. As least I'd guess so. It took me a bit to pick up the vibe as I haven't personally lived through some of the bits of the story myself, but could still empathise.

I give this an easy 5/5 stars, the story is well rounded and needs no words to be magnificent.