Review: The Marvels

The Marvels by Brian Selznick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A 3 for the story, a 5 for the art/presentation.

This is a multigenerational story at its core surroudning a family of actors and a kid who is uncovering the mysteries of his family's past. This is common ground for Selznick, who again uses hundreds of pages of illustrations with a text story in the middle, much like Hugo Cabret and Wonder Struck.

The way he structured the story felt more organic than in his previous books, to its credit, but the issue I had overall was how relatively thin the actual story was. I was more invested in the artwork than the actual story it was telling, and the text portions ultimately felt more like placeholders to get to the end.

I wouldn't *not* recommend this to anyone, as Selznick is a master at what he does. I was just more wowed by his previous work and I ultimately don't feel as if this holds up quite the same way. Part of it might just be the subject matter, but so much of it felt like a retread that the core of the tale didn't ring the same way.

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