A review by pages_with_panda
Something In The Water by Elijah Joseph

dark fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

0.5

The story felt incredibly rushed and corny. The dialogue was unbelievable and lacked any kind of personality. None of the dialogue felt like it was coming from the characters, like you could just swapped any speech bubbles with any other person's and it wouldn't have mattered. 

The characters all felt like caricatures and 1-dimensionial. We see zero development from any of them except for some forced language at the end, and they really reacted so unrealistic. For example
Daniel gets over Lauren's death almost immediately, and we don't actually see any kind of reactions from anyone else...


The plot felt like it had 0 stakes and also 0 emotional weight to anything. The violence felt boring, even when done for shock value. The story didn't flow at all, it just felt like we were rushed from scene to scene without any kind of build-up or foreshadowing. 

Then there were some casual racist jokes by characters that added nothing to the plot. One made by the big baddie and then another by Jeremy during what was supposed to be a tense time.

The illustrations were interesting. Incredibly gritty and realistic with a neat style. Really the only good thing about the story, although at times the characters looked creepy and too detailed? If that makes sense. 

Anyways, I managed to finish it in one sitting because of how little pages there were, but maybe it could've benefited from an additional volume. 

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