This book was not has good as the first one, but I haven't given up on the series. I liked the first one SO MUCH that it set a very, very high bar. This second installment suffered from a shocking start followed by a very slow, almost sluggish, middle section in which a lot of quiet scenes failed to convey (at least to me) a vast emotional shift between two key characters. The end picked up, with a few sharp twists, some intrigue and some excitement but that didn't entirely erase how I felt in the middle. I will take a little break before starting in on book three, and we'll see where this story goes!

I just re-read this book for a second time after having read it first in 2006. I don't think I appreciated it much on the first pass, because of how much of time Ferdinand (the title character) spends either chasing girls or moping about girls who have dumped him. But as an older reader, and one who has now draw close to 1000 pages of my own comics, I appreciate it so much more. Sfar is a whimsical master of a kind of rambling, strange, funny, spontaneous work. He has created a whole universe of characters (vampires, mummies, wood-nymphs, witches, crime-fighters, cats, ghosts, rabbis, golems, and more) who make cameos in all of his books. His stories don't follow a pattern of rising and falling action- I've heard he essentially makes them up as he inks them one panel at a time. I would go mad trying to write like that. But I love seeing his results- they are loosey-goosey in a why I now find extremely pleasing.