Rob Reger

What I know about Emily the Strange I've learned over the past few years from t-shirts, postcards and stickers from her merch line at Hot Topic. While Emily has had books devoted to her before, they've been art books with very little text. "The Lost Days" is Emily's first adventure in the narrative. I admit that I'm a biased Emily fan, but this novel impressed me for being so true to what I'd already gleaned about her character. Not an easy task, since the story opens when Emily awakens on a show more bench in a bizarre little town - armed only with an empty journal and none of her memories. Her amnesia is never frustrating though, surprisingly, and instead adds to the charm of the book as she works to figure out what's going on. The pages are peppered with hand-written notes, lists (13 items long, of course), and adorable doodles of cats and skulls. The mystery is engaging, the characters are unforgettably unique, and the book never feels like it's a sell-out. Not bad for a character that started out as a t-shirt design. show less

Full review: https://wanderinglectiophile.wordpress.com/2018/04/25/review-the-lost-days-emily...

I dearly loved this novel! Seriously. It was the exact change of pace I needed and turned out to be way better than I had anticipated.

The whole book is written in an epistolary style were Emily relays events and thoughts to you through journal entries. In among those entries you get the added bonus of sketches, doodles, photos, etcetera and it makes for the most wonderful reading experience. The show more story line was interesting and engaging. I was afraid that the plot line would be shallow and lost due to a focus being placed on the desired concept of the book (doodles, peculiar and strange characteristics, angst, etcetera) and not the story within, but it wasn’t. There is a legitimate and entertaining story to be experienced within the doodled and quirky journal entries.

Although Emily is in fact strange and peculiar, as well as an angst-y troublemaker, she’s still a very likable character. I marvel at the dept you get from her character in this book. Epistolary style writing tends to make it hard for me to connect with the characters, but that was never an issue in this book. Her character is clear and understandable throughout. The other peripheral characters are also felt out and interesting, which just makes the whole of it that much better.

I almost didn’t give this book a full five stars because it didn’t “fit” in with my other five star reads, but then I asked myself “Why the hell not?!” I really enjoyed this book and dinging it a star because it didn’t “fit” the mold seemed not only like an oxymoron but incredibly stupid of me. It’s now one of my favorites (as pretty much all my 5 star reads are) and has a permanent home on my bookshelf. show less

The artwork is beautiful and the narrative is intriguing but the characters are really flat so I didn't actually care what happened.

I bought this book last year for my nine year old – it’s written for young adults, but we fell in love with the cats. After a quick flick through, there was no subject matter to worry about, just some long words and a large quirk quotient. She loved it and has been pestering me to read it too ever since – so I did, and it utterly charmed me too with its madcap ways…

Emily the Strange started out as a design on T-shirts back in the early 1990s, and went from there to some art books, show more comics and finally an illustrated novel, (No 2 is imminent). But who is Emily? - here’s the blurb …

"13 years old. Able to leap tall buildings, probably, if she felt like it. More likely to be napping with her four black cats; or cobbling together a particle accelerator out of lint, lentils, and safety pins; or rocking out on drums/guitar/saxophone/zither; or painting a swirling feral sewer mural; or forcing someone to say “swirling feral sewer mural” 13 times fast … and pointing and laughing."

She’s certainly one of a kind – and no stranger to doing things for herself! The start of the novel, which is told in diary form, sees her waking up on a park bench in a strange town called Blackrock all on her own and she doesn’t remember a thing. But this amnesia doesn’t faze her at all, she sets out to find out who she is and what’s happening in the strange town. She adopts the coffee bar ‘El Dungeon’ as a home from home and sleeps in a box in the alley behind. Raven behind the counter looks after her and soon she adopts four lovely cats – or rather they adopt her…

There’s a definite dystopian/gothic/fantasy/steampunky/geeky feel to the book which I loved. Emily is one smart cookie; she’s a girl after my own heart being a list-maker, scientist and cat-lover. This is one black (with red highlights) covered book that bucks the trend – wonderful illustrations, a hip West-coast sensibility and vocabulary, high quirk quotient – and no vampires! Highly recommended. (9/10, I borrowed this book back from my daughter!). show less