Review: Misty Circus by Victoria Frances

Misty Circus by Victoria Frances
Hardcover, 80 pages
Published: June 18th 2013 by Dark Horse Comics
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Magic and mystery hide in the shadows of the rainy streets of Paris, kindness blooms in unexpected places, and a sad-eyed child journeys into the unknown. Renowned artist of the dark fantastic Victoria Frances first made a splash in the U.S. with her dreamy, sensual paintings in the Favole trilogy. Now, Frances returns with a gorgeous storybook for all ages. The tale of little Parisian boy Sasha and his poignant misadventures is at once heartwarming and melancholy, combining a sweetly gothic story with arresting, beautifully painted illustrations.

My Review:

The reason I wanted to request this book for review was the absolutely beautiful cover. I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but I just couldn’t help myself.  The beautiful illustrations continue through the book almost looking like a scrapbook or photo album in some parts. All the pages have full illustrations, even the ones that only contain words and no actual pictures.

This book follows are a little boy named Sasha. Sasha mother has passed away and his father became too depressed and just left. A few days later, his teacher finds out he has been living alone and he is sent off to an orphanage that he quickly decides that he hates. So as he is a young child, he decides that running away will solve his problems. He runs off into the woods behind the orphanage and gets himself quite lost. He soon stumbles across a new friend and they proceed to wonder aimlessly through the fog filled woods. Eventually they stumble upon the Misty Circus and they learn what it is and why they found it.

The story continues on with a couple more things happening after that but I feel like there should have been more. I believe there were original story was split into two different parts but in this English version both parts are in one book. There are random poems stuck in here and there although they were in another language that I don’t speak therefore I have no idea what they were about. The ending of this book did just that. It ended. It felt like this was just part of a story and I’m missing the end.

This was a very quick read and the illustrations were definitely my favorite part. I just wish the story would have been longer.

Do I Recommend this Book/Series?

I would recommend it for the beautiful illustrations but not so much for the story. If they illustrations wouldn’t have been so great I probably would have bumped the rating down a star.

My Rating:

*This book was provided by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.