92. Salsa Invertebraxa by Mozchops

Salsa Invertebraxa by Mozchops (Worldwide)

Pages: 104
Ages: 18+
Finished: Mar. 24, 2012
First Published: Oct. 31, 201
Publisher: Pecksniff Press
Genre: graphic novel, fantasy, verse
Rating: 2.5/5


First verse:

"the forest is a silent witness,
a boundless muteness,
as silent as it is endless
along its
greencoat canopy"

Publisher's Summary: "Salsa Invertebraxa is the odyssey of two invertebrate companions, who journey through a vibrant world of imaginary insects and flora. By sunlight, new species of insect emerge to feed and flirt among surreal landscapes of gigantic flowers and gardens of terrestrial delights. By moonlight, this unearthly microverse becomes a nightmare shadowscape as the two
kleptomaniacs attempt to steal eggs from monstrous super-predators.  The tranquillity of eden trembles with war and rage, as a deadly game of survival plays out. Salsa Invertebraxa is for all readers, a magical window into a beautiful, dangerous and mysterious world."

Acquired: Received a review copy from Pecksniff Press.

Reason for Reading:   The book looked beautiful and sounded interesting.

First off, let me say that I was not going to give this book a rating as I was flummoxed as to what I should rate it.  This has never happened to me before but then when I thought about it, not giving the book a rating was copping out.  My rating is like giving the book a 50%; I kind of feel like the right person would enjoy this book much more than I did and could deservedly give it a higher rating.

The illustration is absolutely fantastic, stunning and what I appreciated about this book.  On illustration alone I would rate it a 5/5.  Each page is awesome and the book is printed in an over sized horizontal format to really emphasize the panoramic views.  Even though we are looking at insects here, they are up close and take on the aspects of an almost alien species.  If these were photographs, I'd be freaked out by the insects but these CG paintings are incredibly beautiful.

As to the book's story.  It is in verse and to tell the truth I was utterly confused.  Here my rating would be a 0/5.  You can read the publisher's summary but from reading the words I had no idea what was going on.  Certain phrases and groups of words appealed to my sense of literature, but I am not a poetry person and could not find a story within the verse.  All I could tell was the beginning was happy, then the story turned very dark in the middle and finally became exhilarating at the end.  However, I do not read a book to receive random emotions.  I think the right person for this book must first be someone who appreciates unorthodox verse, then secondly will appreciate the illustration of that verse.  This was not my kind of book.