Reviews

Merry-Go-Round by Sergio Rossi

Only show reviews with written explanations

spenkevich's review against another edition

3.0

We all go ricocheting off one another through life and even the best laid plans can never account for the unseen actions (or subversions) of others often moving as a chain reaction of emotional energy from multiple degrees of separation. Such is the tangled web of people Merry-Go Round aims to capture, a rather convoluted, modern graphic novel adaptation of a Arthur Schnitzler play from 1920. This 2021 Andersen Prize for Best Comic Book winning title is brought to life by writer Sergio Rossi, illustrated by Agnese Innocente and translated here from the Italian by Carla Roncalli di Montorio, and moves between 10 characters. Beginning with two characters, each chapter takes one character from the previous chapter and shows their interactions with a new character until we return back to the first as a rather interesting look at all the various romances (mostly thwarted), heartbreaks, betrayals and more that go on between them. As Hope mentions in their review which inspired me to read this, it can be a bit obfuscating, though the emotional vibes still hit decently well and makes for a fascinating portrait of young life caught in the tempests of one another.

This is rather fun though often a bit frustrating with some of the stories being a tad tough to follow where motivations can be a bit hazy. Mostly it features young people thwarting their own love lives by being fairly bad at it, which feels rather true to life. It goes through quite the range of emotions with a few rather well done scenes, one in particular featuring the daydreams of two characters as they await a pregnancy test imagining both the good and bad times that might be coming. The scene, however, follows discovering that the same guy may have two different women awaiting pregnancy tests while he is sleeping with one of their mothers so like, the characters tend to be pretty flawed and often unlikable. Aside from the adorable romance between the bookstagram girl and the shy girl who is texting her pretending to be her friend because he has no interest in actually learning bookstagram girl’s book interests. Though this plot line felt like a less nuanced rehash of the movie The Half of It. Still the vibes are pretty enjoyable and the art is delightful.

Merry-Go Round is indeed quite the Merry-Go Round of emotions and has a rather fascinating method of telling a broad story. Worth the read, though I must confess I was only mildly enthusiastic about it.

3.5/5