A review by yellowbinge
Vincent: A Graphic Biography by Simon Elliott

informative slow-paced

2.0

Publishing date: 06.08.2024

Thank you to Netgalley and Quarto Publishing Group for the ARC. My opinions are my own. 

The book as a meal: I thought I drank from my coffe cup, I drank my paint water instead
The book left me: A little more educated about Vincent Van Gogh's life

Negatives:
Soulless and lackluster art
Narrator often feels intrusive and uneccessary 
Misleading and repetitive artwork

Positives:
Would fit well for educational purposes, high-school age group maybe

Features: 
Semi-comic style, lots of info, narrated by Van Gogh's sister in Law, adult themes, 

Why did I choose this one?
I like art and I like Learning about artists

Pick-up-able? Put-down-able?
In between. The ratio og text to images is very skewed. The narration also makes understanding who we are talking about a little difficult. As this is an informative text, it will be like an info dump, which slowed my reading pace considerably. 

Final ranking and star rating?
Sadly, D tier, 2 stars. I didn't Connect and process this biography like I wanted to. The negatives about it were too negative, and I expected artwork like Van Goghs. It does feature a more comic-like Version of some of his artwork, but it didn't do them justice. I expected more than what this book could give me. The concept it great, but needs to be polished a little more. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings