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Unholy Kinship

By Tao Mori
December 28, 2010 - 17:28

    Unholy Kinship is about Luca a nineteen year old girl that looks after her mentally challenged sister Gae after their father died and their mother was committed into a mental hospital. Luca’s life starts to change and events of her past are not what they appear to be.

    Naomi Nowak’s series of books are written and drawn by herself. She is from Sweden where she started out as a painter and illustrator. Graphic novels allowed her to blend her writing and artistic talents into one piece of work. Unholy Kinship is the first of three graphic novels that’s she written (I’ve only read two). Her drawings are usually quite detailed and well drawn.

    The first thing that I will say about Unholy Kinship is that it is confusing and depressing, readers beware. The confusion fits the story because we’re dealing with the mind and its intricacies and madness. We get very distinct moments when we know when Luca is dreaming, but then there’s this one scene that may or may not reveal a critical moment of Luca’s past, which we are unaware of whether or not it’s real. The edge of the panels themselves have dashed lines that go around the story during these parts, and I believe this is Nowak’s way of telling us the reader that this section can be seen as either a dream or not. If you take it as a dream or hallucination then clearly you think that poor Luca has lost her marbles and deserves the fate that befalls her, if however like me you think that it is real then Luca has been cast to a horrible fate of the religious mental hospital. That in of a itself is a horrible punishment, but then there sounds like there’s some sort of gigantic conspiracy going on in the background with talking monkeys. Either way the end is depressing and this is where the story ends, as far as I’ve been able to discern there is continuation of this storyline.

    The best part of this book is it’s artwork, which in of itself is easy to get yourself lost in. The two sisters in the book are so beautifully done, with rosy cheeks and glistening skin, they appear better looking then people themselves do. Nowak captures the characteristics of mood and character well, emotions are very easy to read and the stuffed animals are charming to look at as well. Weather also plays a distinct role within the story and its visual depiction is done well. Where we get these scenes with rain and wind adding to the stress of Luca’s daily life. The animals in the story don’t get the same visual attention that the human characters do. There are fewer shiny points that attract the attention, they’re mostly solid colours. Despite the stunning visuals of this book, the story itself did not attract me much.

Rating: 6 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12