Book: The Complete Essex County
Author: Jeff Lemire.
Pages: 512
Read On: My iPad
How Long It Took Me To Read: 3-4 hours (with breaks)
Plot Summary: Where does a young boy turn when his whole world suddenly disappears? What turns two brothers from an unstoppable team into a pair of bitterly estranged loners? How does the simple-hearted care of one middle-aged nurse reveal the scars of an entire community, and can anything heal the wounds caused by a century of deception? Award-winning cartoonist Jeff Lemire pays tribute to his roots with Essex County, an award-winning trilogy of graphic novels set in an imaginary version of his hometown, the eccentric farming community of Essex County, Ontario, Canada. In Essex County, Lemire crafts an intimate study of one community through the years, and a tender meditation on family, memory, grief, secrets, and reconciliation.
General Thoughts: If you can't tell, I have been on a pretty massive graphic novel kick lately. And I can't seem to stop. I have no regrets :)
This book comes highly recommended and highly acclaimed and on reading it, I can see why people love it so much. This almost read like a work of literary fiction, the art and the drawings seemed like a minor detail and the story itself was a hero. I really enjoyed this book.
Things I Loved:
1. This book includes three stories all set in the same county but across different times. And in the end the stories come together beautifully. I love books like this, different stories that merge into one.
2. The writing, plot and premise were all wonderful.
3. This book and the author does a fantastic job of showing loneliness, solitude and human frailty. I felt all of these things as I was reading this book.
4. The art was great too, though for me the story was definitely the hero of this tale.
5. This book is full of likable and really wonderful characters. Just good people I grew to care about. Lester and his uncle Kenny and Jimmy in the first story, the two brothers in the second story and the nurse in the third story were all just great people to read about and root for.
6. This book really touched my heart and I had soooo many 'feels' reading it, which doesn't often happen with graphic novels...well, other than Persepolis and Maus, but those were both true stories.
7. This book is set in Canada and I loved reading about Canada and I don't think I've read anything set in Canada before...I think.
8. This was a perfect read of this time of year (December) with all the snow and cold and winter elements in this book.
Rating: 5/5
I loved this book and cannot recommend it enough!
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