Rosanna Bruno makes a mess, sometimes, according to her biographical strapline. Well I sure wish this one hadn't been published. Not knowing nearly enough about the subject here I actually now know less, due to this ungainly, slapdash pile of doodah. It quotes the same lines and verses multiple times, leaps from one subject to another and right back again, never begins to think of being funny, and taught me so little I really have no idea why it got the green light. It smacks of a knowing in-joke when I wanted a biography, without or without quirks. Not just a bad, unattractive book, but a quite harmfully helpless one.

This is a very short graphic novel that takes some lines from Emily Dickinon's poems and creates a modern tale from it. What would happen if Emily was on Facebook or Twitter? What if she was tired of being alone and tried some dating websites? This had the potential of being funny but fir me, it didn't hit that mark. I read through this in less than a half an hour and I didn't laugh. I wanted to laugh and really see the integration between these old poems and our current world. I thought this graphic novel tried to hard. I found the illustrations at times to be a bit underwhelming and distracting.

Life lesson: You can never go wrong by starting with a James Bond parody.
If the famous poetess were alive today, how different would her life be? She’d probably still be a recluse, but having much more fun with it due to social media. The author takes snippets from Emily’s life and poems to show what could have been.
Some highlights:
Angie Dickenson made the family tree.
“(Dogs) are better than human beings, because they know but don’t tell.” Her dog can speak, but only says “Ruh-ro.” (Okay, he says “Woof!” once.)
Emily as advice columnist? Fashionista? Top chef?
There’s Facebook, Instagram, dating websites, emojis, apps like Spinterest, and of course Twitter, because she liked birds. There are pages that only contain silhouettes, as well as exhortations for book donations for the museum library.
The drawings are simple sketches, but really that’s all that’s needed.
Some good stuff, but not quite as funny as it thinks.

This was a quick humorous read. Rosanna Bruno used lines from Dickinson's poems to show her life in the modern world. This graphic novel is divided into 5 chapters - Life, Work, Social Life, Nature and Time and Eternity similar to the sections of Dickinson's complete works. I loved the section where Emily was an advice columnist who answered letters using snippets of her poems. Her facebook profile, instagram, dating profile etc. showed her fascination with death, love of nature and her reclusiveness.

Each page is largely an illustration to fit in with a line or section of poetry. The illustrations are black and white pencil drawings or scribbles that really fit with this type of book. If you are a student of Dickinson, someone who has knowledge of her personal life, this book will tickle your fancy, if not, you might have difficulty "getting it".

I loved this book! It was clever and funny. I enjoyed reading about Emily in social media, etc. Imagining her in modern day society. It made me giggle the whole way through. Bravo!