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chronicallybookish 's review for:
Between Shades of Gray: The Graphic Novel
by Andrew Donkin, Ruta Sepetys
Quick Stats
Age Rating: 14+
Over All: 5 stars
Plot: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
Setting:
Writing: 5/5
Special thanks to Penguin Teen and NetGalley for an eARC of this book! All thoughts and opinions reflected in this review are my own.
TW: physical abuse, violence, genocide, war, death, cruelty, sexual assault, starvation, illness, forced prostitution, + more
I read the original version of Between Shades of Gray about two years ago, and from the very first line, which is the same in this version of the book, “They took me in my nightgown.” I knew that this book was going to change the way I see the world. And it did.
This is the same story as the original book, published 10 years ago, but reformatted and illustrated into graphic novel form. I had two main concerns about how the book would translate into a graphic novel.
1. How were they going to take this whole book and condense it into a graphic novel (which has less words than a traditional novel) without losing something important?
I can’t pretend to know how they did so—I don’t know the first thing about adapting a book into a graphic novel—but nothing felt to be missing from the graphic novel. All of the important scenes and events were there, and all of the themes and emotions were displayed even more powerfully with the addition of illustrations.
2. Are they going to be able to adapt this novel, which shows horrible, disturbing truths, into images without illustrating anything too graphic?
This book has many scenes of abuse, death, sexual assault, and more. In the original book, Ruta Sepetys masterfully expresses the severity of these events without ever becoming too graphic or detailed, allowing the book to safely fit within the YA genre. I wasn’t sure if they would be able to successfully translate those scenes into graphic novel form without directly illustrating them, which would potentially have caused the book to feature images too mature for a YA audience. However, Sepetys, Kopka, and Donkin successfully portrayed these events through text boxes of internal monologue (a staple of this book) placed on background imagery that gave you the sense and mood of what was going on without visually showing it.
Ruta Sepetys had an incredible story already. One that taught me many heartbreaking—but oh so important—truths about the horrors of World War 2. And now, along with Dave Kopka and Andrew Donkin, the book has been reimagined in a way that makes it even more impactful and will bring new readers to Lina’s story.
Age Rating: 14+
Over All: 5 stars
Plot: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
Setting:
Writing: 5/5
Special thanks to Penguin Teen and NetGalley for an eARC of this book! All thoughts and opinions reflected in this review are my own.
TW: physical abuse, violence, genocide, war, death, cruelty, sexual assault, starvation, illness, forced prostitution, + more
I read the original version of Between Shades of Gray about two years ago, and from the very first line, which is the same in this version of the book, “They took me in my nightgown.” I knew that this book was going to change the way I see the world. And it did.
This is the same story as the original book, published 10 years ago, but reformatted and illustrated into graphic novel form. I had two main concerns about how the book would translate into a graphic novel.
1. How were they going to take this whole book and condense it into a graphic novel (which has less words than a traditional novel) without losing something important?
I can’t pretend to know how they did so—I don’t know the first thing about adapting a book into a graphic novel—but nothing felt to be missing from the graphic novel. All of the important scenes and events were there, and all of the themes and emotions were displayed even more powerfully with the addition of illustrations.
2. Are they going to be able to adapt this novel, which shows horrible, disturbing truths, into images without illustrating anything too graphic?
This book has many scenes of abuse, death, sexual assault, and more. In the original book, Ruta Sepetys masterfully expresses the severity of these events without ever becoming too graphic or detailed, allowing the book to safely fit within the YA genre. I wasn’t sure if they would be able to successfully translate those scenes into graphic novel form without directly illustrating them, which would potentially have caused the book to feature images too mature for a YA audience. However, Sepetys, Kopka, and Donkin successfully portrayed these events through text boxes of internal monologue (a staple of this book) placed on background imagery that gave you the sense and mood of what was going on without visually showing it.
Ruta Sepetys had an incredible story already. One that taught me many heartbreaking—but oh so important—truths about the horrors of World War 2. And now, along with Dave Kopka and Andrew Donkin, the book has been reimagined in a way that makes it even more impactful and will bring new readers to Lina’s story.