I’m using this book to check off the Fantasy space on my book bingo.
Nimona, determined to be a villain and armed with the power to shapeshift, apprentices herself to Ballister Blackheart. But she quickly proves she’s more villainous than her teacher, and everyone is left with difficult questions of right and wrong, innocence and guilt, villainy and heroism.
Nimona (HarperCollins, 2015) is the second graphic novel by illustrator and author Noelle Stevenson. Her first, Lumberjanes (BOOM!box, 2015, co-written with Grace Ellis), took the comic world by storm. It consistently sold out on every issue as a serialized comic and the collection won both a Goodreads Choice Award and an Eisner Award, the biggest of big deals. Nimona is just as clever, just as witty, just as grand in scope. In fact, her voice seemed more developed in this one as each character took on their own personality just through the dialog, something I think is too often ignored in graphic novels.
I think the dedication made this book for me. It’s written “For all the monster girls.” Since much of the story line hangs around Ballister’s moral quandaries, I think I could have missed the loving and sympathetic treatment of the real bad guy if I hadn’t read that dedication. But because I knew that was the intention, it sang to me of something I had forgotten about the anger that comes from feeling like you don’t belong.
And the best part is, I’m not the only one who saw this. I sent it home from my library with a 12 year old I knew felt that same rage at somehow not fitting in, and she brought it back with the highest praise. Give this graphic novel to any and every tween. They need a bad guy like Nimona.
Liz Gabbitas 