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Title: Goldie Vance
Series: Goldie Vance, Volume 1
Author: Hope Larson
Illustrator: Brittney Williams
Genre: Graphic Novel, Mystery, Middle Grades
Publisher: BOOM! Box
Date: October 11, 2016
Length: 112 pages
This book was free from NetGalley in Exchange for an honest review
Move over Nancy, Harriet, & Veronica. There's a new sleuth on the block!
Sixteen-year-old Marigold “Goldie” Vance lives at a Florida resort with her dad, who manages the place. Her mom, who divorced her dad years ago, works as a live mermaid at a club downtown. Goldie has an insatiable curiosity, which explains her dream to one day become the hotel’s in-house detective. When Charles, the current detective, encounters a case he can’t crack, he agrees to mentor Goldie in exchange for her help solving the mystery. Eisner Award-winning writer Hope Larson (A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel) and artist Brittney Williams (Patsy Walker, A.K.A Hellcat!) present the newest gal sleuth on the block with Goldie Vance, an exciting, whodunnit adventure.
Description from Goodreads
Art: Great retro style to manga-esque art with a candy colored palette. Panels are very clean with spare backgrounds. The illustrations seemed to match Goldie's vivacious personality.
Humor: This isn't a laugh out loud book, but the humor sprinkled through is pretty random and that just makes the laughs pop out of you. My favorite part was a spy yelling in Russian which apparently translates into "booger". (I think this means I've been spending too much time with sixth graders.)
Diversity: It's great to see a comic book world populated with so many people of color just being normal. The story opens with Goldie helping the Kids find their wayward son. Cheryl at the front desk is super smart, adorably in love with Alan Shepard, and dreams of being an astronaut. Hotel guests and employees reflect the racial diversity of the US.
What I'm on the fence about
Story: This was a quick little mystery complete with car chases and and spies. I thought it was a bit simple, no real twists or cliff hangers. And there’s a lot of theft going on in that hotel but Goldie lets them slide if they’re her friend. That kinda makes her the worst hotel detective ever. The storyline actually seemed a better fit for older elementary or middle schoolers then the YA target audience.A diverse and welcoming story set in the 60s requires some suspension of belief: I appreciate the diversity in this story, that a black man can run a resort in Florida and his daughter and her friends have no trouble eating at the local diner. But that's not reality and it kind of threw me off at first. I couldn't figure out if the story was actually set in the past or if it just had a retro feel. It's just something I wanted to point out, it wasn't a deal breaker for me and probably won't bother most readers.
Stereotypical bad guys: Lots of stock character bad guys, from spies, to blustering hotel owners and their horrible spoiled daughters. This kind of enforced the simplistic feel of the story. But Sugar Maple, the spoiled daughter, is horrible and I really want Goldie to kick her butt. Repeatedly.
The ending: What?! I don't want to spoil the story but the ending was kind of a lame "twist". It felt very convenient but ridiculous out of left field conclusion.
Rating: 3.5
I liked it and weaknesses can be attributed to laying the groundwork for a new series. It's a bubbly and cute little mystery that I think will appeal to readers.
Does this kind of idealized historical setting pull you out of the narrative or is it easy for you to overlook? Have you read any of the other Goldie Vance issues? Does the story get stronger as it goes along?
This sounds like a fun graphic novel! It sounds wonderfully diverse. I think I usually have an easy time overlooking historical inaccuracies, but I guess it depends on what's inaccurate.
ReplyDeleteI kinda had to force myself to see this as an alternative world, but it could be because it was TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD time and the 9th graders were doing their short historical context research when I read this. My brain just tripped up on it every time.
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