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Loading... Secret Passages (original 2021; edition 2022)by Axelle Lenoir (Author)
Work InformationSecret Passages by Axelle Lenoir (2021)
None No current Talk conversations about this book. The author does a surreal fantasy adaptation of her childhood wherein parents are aliens, a little brother's imaginary friend is a demon from hell, and a cosmic alternate universe version of herself has just died. I love the art, the narration, and individual anecdotes, but it starts to seem a bit overlong and meandering. Seeing as it only covers first grade, it ends as if it is but the first volume of a series, leaving a lot of unanswered questions. I do hope to see a follow-up. The first part of a well-drawn, very slow-moving, graphic novel memoir. It's the first collected part of an ongoing series, not a standalone, which I didn't realize going in. I really enjoyed the art, the humor, the stark differences between the affects of adult and child Axelle, the family relationships, and particularly loved the youngest brother. I think people who are already familiar with this author and their works might have more well-founded expectations and a better response to this, I'm not sure. Going in completely cold, it's quite slow, and since I don't know anything it's unclear what I'm meant to guess is real, metaphorical, or completely fictional—and since it turns out to be just the earliest intro, it's hard to tell yet if such a distinction is even important. no reviews | add a review
Welcome to an autobiography from another dimension. A wildly inventive cartoonist begins her imaginary memoir -- exploring the girlhood she never had. Many LGBTQ adults look back on their youth and wonder- what might have been? Growing up "in the closet" tends to produce a sort of double identity, between the inner self and the self seen by the outside world. Now, cartoonist Axelle Lenoir, in her unpredictable and imaginative way, makes this metaphor real. Secret Passages, narrated by the adult author, begins with the death of her (male) "cosmic twin." From there it launches into a rollicking ride of childhood antics, set in 1985 small-town Quebec. We get to know Axelle (a rebellious little girl who dreads Grade 1 and is captivated by the spooky forest near the house), her brothers (who share her off-the-charts enthusiasm for cartoons and toys), and their long-suffering parents (who may or may not be aliens). These lively comic-strip style anecdotes, reminiscent of Calvin & Hobbes and packed full of pop-culture parodies, are juxtaposed with surreal twists as Axelle's existential crisis mutates the narrative, building to a mind-bending climax. No library descriptions found. |
![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)741.5The arts Graphic arts and decorative arts Drawing & drawings Cartoons, Caricatures, ComicsLC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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https://youtu.be/Er8CmUBLAkA
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