Publisher: Abrams ComicArts
Release Date: March 21, 2018
Price: $24.99
Creator(s): Audrey Niffenegger (writer), w/ Eddie Campbell (artist)
Format: 168 pgs., 6.5"x9", Full-Color, Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2853-2
Age Rating: Mature
ICv2 Rating: 4 Stars out of 5
Audrey Niffenegger is perhaps best known for her novel, The Time Traveller's Wife. Her husband, Eddie Campbell, is best known for his serious graphic volumes, ranging from Alec to From Hell. This book is nothing like any of those works, and in startling ways is an attempt at a whole new format for graphic works.
The book contains short text fiction, narrative graphic adaptations of performance art pieces, and even paper dolls. Each piece in this volume is loosely connected to the book’s title, although "Bizarre Love" might be more accurate. Love of a pet, love of a person or place, and love of a variety of other sorts is at the heart of the volume.
Any given reader may not like every piece in the book, because each has emotional strengths and weaknesses, just as real love and romance do. On the other hand, almost every reader will find something interesting in the book.
The artwork is not as consistent as some of Campbell’s other work, because the artwork is matched to the mood of each story, and some of them have strange moods indeed. Not all of the "romances" in this book are to be taken seriously, but none can be taken lightly.
The volume is for adults, both for nudity and for the styles of the storytelling, much of which depends on life experience of the reader.
--Nick Smith: Library Technician, Community Services, for the Pasadena Public Library in California.