Hi everyone!
It’s been a long time since I posted a review both because of school and an annoying reading slump.
First of all thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Queen of Kenosha by Howard Shapiro

Genre: Graphic Novel, Music, History
Illustrations by Erica Chan
Publisher: Animal Media Group LLC
Expected publication:October 9th 2018
My rating:   3.75 out of 5
 

PLOT:A coming of age tale, this is the first installment of the Thin Thinline Trilogy, the fiercely independent Nina Overstreet has an axe to grind. A talented singer-songwriter slogging her way through the burgeoning Greenwich Village folk music scene of 1963, the Queen of Kenosha, Wisconsin, realizes that standing on the cusp of stardom gets her little respect and barely a cup of coffee in New York City. It finally comes, but in a way she could have never imagined. A chance encounter with the mysterious Nick Ladd at a late-night gig spins her life in a different direction–one that becomes a daily balance between life and death, right and wrong. Nick recruits Nina to join him and a team of ex-FBI operatives in a clandestine agency to stop the establishment of the Fourth Reich by undercover Nazis in post-War America. It’s a cause Nina believes in … until she’s forced to compromise the very principles of fairness and patriotism she holds dear. As she and Nick grow closer as partners, she forces him to question his own intentions. But as the body count mounts in pursuit of the Nazi ringleader, the evasive Alex, the stakes grow even higher for Nick and Nina.

ADD TO GOODREADS   AMAZON

Review

So I just signed up on Netgalley and while I was looking for some books to request I found this book and without even reading the description I requested it because of the awesome cover!

This book is set in the 60s (which I didn’t know until I finished it and read the back cover :D) and it deals with a young singer that discovers an organization that has to take down the Nazis that escaped to America after WWII.

I love the plot even if don’t like the ending, at all (I nearly cried) and the storyline was so entertaining that I finished it in less than a day without putting it down and got me out of my reading slump! But I have to say it wasn’t really intriguing for me, probably because it’s an historical graphic novel.

 To be honest I requested this book because of the amazing cover and its art style… but when i looked inside the book I was disappointed because  there is a completely different style. The style inside the pages is similar to the “american comic style” which I’m not a fan of and the colors aren’t as vibrant as the cover. Overall the art is good but pretty minimalistic, as if the authors wanted the readers to concentrate on the plot and not on the art.

The characters where very defined and different from each other. The main character, Nina, is a songwriter which is helped in the music industry by her manager and cousin Christina and Jimmy a mysterious guy she meets at a bar. There is also a great character development that surprised me!

The writing is simple, which I like when I’m reading comics, even if I didn’t like the constant debates between Nina and the organization.

Last but not least the music theme: I really like this costant theme throughout the story and I love the “recommended listening” pages with lists of 3-4 songs to listen (which always had a song by the main character). At the end of the book there are also the lyrics of Nina’s songs that I really liked, but I’m sad that the songs don’t actually exist.

Final Thoughts 

Specific Ratings

Plot: 4 out ot 5
Cover: 5 out of 5
Writing: 4 out of 5
Interest: 4 out of 5
Diversity: 2 out of 5
Characters: 4.5 out of 5
The Feels and emotions: 2 out of 5

Final thoughts

Overall I enjoyed reading this book and I give it 3.75 out of 5 stars (4 on goodreads). I really liked this book and I’ll definetely read the sequels.
This book is a fast-paced novel with amazing themes such as spies and music. The captivating cover and the great recommended songs definitely make this graphic-novel stand-out.

So what do you think about the book? Have you read it?

Thank you for reading,