5/10, I didn't enjoy this book, but maybe it's because I don't enjoy graphic novels that much at all. The palette is limited, but seems intentional, and the story itself was just so flat. It was just a princess who goes to the human world, and falls in love. How cliche, but at least there's some action in it. ( )

The art is quite beautiful, although some panels seem to jump a bit too much between actions, leaving a sort of stilted feeling to much of the story. The story itself is fine. I was going to say that I like that women make up most of the cast but that’s not actually true. Of the named characters, there are... maybe four women? Including the protagonist? I’m not even sure that we learn Mera’s mother’s name, despite her importance to the story. Conversely, there are eight named male characters, and outside Mera interacting with her mother or female caretaker or the two random women at the ball, or the one shop clerk she steals from without facing consequences for no apparent reason, she doesn’t really interact with women much. Most of the story is her interacting with her father, her arranged fiancé, Arthur, Arthur’s father, or her friend, who I thought was female or NB but I think is actually male.

It’s not a bad story. It’s just not.... thrilling. I’m over the “I’m more than a skirt give me weapons” female power narrative. As a politician, she could make a big difference, perhaps more so than as a soldier, and she should know that, but the book doesn’t bring that up until the end, when they can “surprise” you with a detail they didn’t fully flesh out for most of the story. So the story is a lot weaker than it could be. I’m not against the direct action rally, I’m just not sure how graffiti - at least what she’s doing- is better than blowing the statue up or whatever. The book is... very confusing and small-minded, narratively speaking, in a lot of ways. It seems to have all the genre tropes of a stereotyped romance, without the good writing of a good romance. Characters do a lot of things that don’t make sense, potentially due to cut scenes or something I don’t know.

Overall, it’s all right. I wish I’d read something like this when I was younger, for the art alone, really, cause it’s miles ahead, art and story-wise, most anything I had access to back then. ( )

I loved the art, but the story was pretty lackluster. ( )

Plot: Unoriginal .5 stars

Characters: Flat .25 stars

Artwork: Decent color palette (1 star) but inconsistent characters. Arthur looked like Chris Pine and Mera changed panel to panel (no stars).

DCverse: If I had known that this was part of an already established superhero 'verse, I would not have requested this from the library. I don't read superheroes or comic books. ( )

Loved this story of Mera. The drawings are intricate and easy to follow. If you've seen the new movie, it doesn't match up to that, but was fine. I enjoyed the girl power aspect of this book. ( )