Ro Solarian

* I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this book. *

Anna and Kat are sisters working with a seedy and run-down circus. Anna is a fortune teller and Kat a knife-thrower. The circus gets stranded in the desert after a breakdown. After a few days in unrelenting heat, Anna finds Kat dead, stabbed in the back with her own knives. Soon after, she sees Kat's ghost and is possessed by it.

Circus owner Jebediah Tetanus asks Anna to keep the murder quiet and to show more investigate on her own. She does so, with the aid of her sister's ghost and of her own hand-built computer. Snake charmer Flora also insists on getting involved.

There is a lot going on in this story, and the climax of volume 1 hints at even weirder things to come. I found it very engaging, and Gedris' lurid artwork is very appropriate for the circus setting. This is a strong start to what promises to be a very interesting series. show less

Spectacle is Gedris' first YA comic, but it retains a lot of the things I've always loved about her adult work. As a performer, she brings the vibrant colors, movement, and costuming of her other job to her comics. Set in a traveling (train) circus in the Old West, Spectacle is populated with talented performers, mysterious characters, and an array of disabled people who are not other-ized in the circus as they are in the general populace.
The plot kicks off with the murder of Anna's twin show more sister, Kat. Anna wakes up, finds her sister's body in a pool of blood, and starts to see her ghost. The story progresses from there as we meet more people in and out of the circus and Anna tries to figure out whodunit. Much of the internal conflict is based on Anna's rocky relationship with her sister and on the ways in which talking to ghosts challenges her previously held beliefs in science over the unexplainable.
The story touches on the ways people engage with religion and with each other, with the concepts of blood family and found family, and the ways we judge those around us. It's a really fun time, tempered with tragedy and mystery. show less

The quirky appeal of the art and writing just outweigh the clumsiness and awkwardness of the same. A murder in the American Old West (one that is not solved in this volume, by the way) forces a smart, introverted, amateur steampunk computer programmer whose day job is fortune teller in a circus to become an investigator, looking for the murderer amongst her coworkers in the main ring, the side shows and the freak show (which while handled fairly well here, is still problematic ground to show more tread). A skeptic, she is also forced to cope with new, in-her-face evidence of supernatural forces at work.

I'd like to see how things develop in a second volume. show less

The second fantasy series this week where I'm disappointed by a second volume that goes nowhere after a promising first volume. (See also: Norroway by Cat and Kit Seaton.)

The likable enough introverted main character ambles and rambles around the circus and freak show not solving the murder mystery that has linked her to her sister's ghost. We spend more time with the other members of the show, but really don't get to know them beyond the mysterious mutations that have started to plague them show more all. No one seems particularly concerned about that development, which signals to me that I shouldn't be either.

I see that two more volumes are being released this year, and I have to wonder if the mystery will ever be solved and if I care enough to invest more time. Hmmm. show less