Rob Justus

Sparkles the Last Unicorn, as you might imagine, enjoys world-wide celebrity and endless marketing opportunities. Completely self-involved, Sparkles encounters Death — yeah, the Death — when the unicorn dies in an incredibly stupid stunt orchestrated by Sparkles’ malevolent agent. Neither Death nor Sparkles have had any real friends heretofore; everything Death touches literally dies, and Sparkles has been so controlled and manipulated that he’s been totally cut off.

This graphic show more novel resonates even more in light of #FreeBrittney and of news accounts of self-absorbed celebrities, be they actors, influencers or politicians. Sparkles’ initial shallow and selfish nature and Death’s bureaucratic work prove pretty funny, and the superficiality of the media and fandom strikes a chord. “All they want is sparkles and bonbons.” A pretty accurate description.

So why didn’t I like this book more? Because, despite being 368 pages long, this book was a one-trick pony unicorn. Aren’t celebrities stupid and vain? Didn’t you just know that the afterlife would have as much red tape as this life? People sure gravitate to superficialities and shlock while ignoring what’s important! Not that I disagree with any of that; however, author and illustrator Rob Justus had made those points by the end of the Chapter 5, and we still had to slog through another 278 pages to get to the end. Where there some funny spots later on? Sure. I loved “the power of bureaucracy” and how often that can save the day. Despite such an auspicious premise, most of the final portion is just pretty cliché.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley and Chronicle Books in exchange for an honest review. show less

Cute and funny but I find the text annoying as I prefer traditional hand-lettering in my graphic novels. This is one of those "first in the series" books where the premise is established but it feels like all the sequels will be more plot-driven and more interesting.

This is an interesting graphic novel. It’s for second grade and above, and it starts out with a bunch of unicorns making friends with moles. However, as the unicorns age they keep leaving the moles out of things, or thinking that they’re better than the moles, and one day the moles have had enough and want to break free. Their plan backfires and the moles end up trapped underground for a very long time. The same time you’re reading this story you’re learning about Sparkles and Death show more who are the very best of friends. Sparkles knows he hast to get to a very specific dance party if, they want to become a Unicorn/Uniman proper. They are part of this that I don’t particularly like because it’s a version of slavery. And there’s nothing to acknowledge it at the end. It’s very now we’re happy, let’s forget the past. There’s no real bridge between the two time periods in the book. I did like it but it’s not a book I would recommend frequently. I liked the way the author told the story I love the illustrations and I think the flow worked. It’s the story that didn’t. show less

Book #2 in the Death & Sparkles series was great. I love that Sparkles got to find out more about his unicorn heritage and that Death got to take a day off and have a little fun. I wonder if we will see more of the mole men in the future?