161. Neil Young's Greendale by Joshua Dysart

Neil Young's Greendale by Joshua Dysart. illustrated by Cliff Chiang. foreward by Neil Young (Canada) - (USA)


Pages: 160
Ages: 18+
Finished: Aug. 11, 2010
First Published: June 15, 2010
Publisher: Vertigo
Genre: graphic novel, magical realism
Rating: 3/5

First sentence:

On a warm spring day way back in 1985, two precious children were born to Edith O'Reilly and Earl Green.

Acquired: Borrowed a copy from my local library.

Reason for Reading: Long-winded reason follows. (LOL) When I heard that this graphic novel was based on an album I though that was so cool and I suddenly had imaginations of what could come next, the graphic versions of Pink Floyd's "The Wall", Queen's "News of the World", Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell". It is an awesome concept. Now I don't like Neil Young as a singer {sorry} and have never heard of this album but was so intrigued with the concept and thought "Neil Young is Canadian so the book would qualify for the Canadian Book Challenge"; I might as well read it.

So here we have the Green Family going back to a great-grandmother living in the town of Greendale, America, population 20 to 25,000. When Sun Green (the main character) was born her twin Luna died in infancy. She is now a 17 year old teen. Her great-aunt Ciela Oaks married both Green brothers, leaving one for the other and eventually one day simply disappeared into the Botanical Gardens forever. Her daughter, Sea Green, also disappeared one day as a teen into the forest never to return. Now Sun is feeling strange, thinking of the past Green women and being followed by a man who obviously represents Satan. Bad things happen. Strange things happen.

Sun becomes an activist. An anti-war, anti-meat, anti-hunting, anti-big electricity companies, anti-oil drilling left-wing mouthy irritant. At this point, I know this book is not for me. I quickly started skipping over all the bubbles full of the political ranting, which was a large portion of text. Honestly the whole political part of the book could have been removed and it wouldn't have made any difference to the story as the book really doesn't go anywhere. The two plots, the girl's political coming of age and the mysterious hippie, nature, environmentalist magical element of the Green woman and the fate of the Green women just kind of flop and end abruptly. And so will my review. Weird and so not my kind of story.