I started out really enjoying this story, the basis of it...but then it got...strange.

After the odd turn I fell out of love with the story and just kept trying to figure out where it came from. Too bad, I really thought it had a lot of potential. It just tried to be overly philosophical...or supernatural...or...I honestly have no idea what it was trying so hard to be. I guess I just didn't get it.

This graphic novel is set around Sam's commitment to write an article about his two months spent in NYC while having no verbal interaction with any other human being. The pressure is especially on since this is his first written article after a decade of photo reports.

Full review with excerpts of the illustrations:
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1960977487
Blog: https://bookspoils.wordpress.com/2017/04/05/review-the-sound-of-the-world-by-heart-by-giacomo-bevilacqua/

I devoured this graphic novel. Every once in a while I'll encounter a graphic novel that tugs me along until I am saddened to turn the last page. This is one of those experiences. I did not want it to end.

The story of a man who has lost a great love. He moves to a different city, New York City in fact, where he begins an experiment in social isolation. It is to become a piece in the magazine he cofounded with his best friend. The task: to spend a month in New York City without talking to anyone. The only exception is his partner, to home he has to give periodical updates. There are rules that make it more complicated, such as the fact that he cannot eat at the same restaurant twice. However, all in all, he is being successful at the task at hand.

This all changes when he picks up pictures he has just developed. a handful of those feature the same girl. The only reason he noticed is because the photos were in black-and-white and the girl was always in color. This leads him all around the city in a frantic search for the girl who has captured his attention. When he finds her he has to decide whether or not he wants his experiment to continue. What follows is a departure onto magical realism that was refreshing and welcoming.

I strongly recommend this book.

In New York in beautiful full color, dingy and glorious, a young man with a painful past embarks on a healing experiment. A photographic love song to New York, to solitude, to companionship, to the impact of a small movement on another's life, to the magic of human connection.

Good job. The illustration work and layout is cool. Story-wise, I think the author tries too hard to make a connection between NewYork as a city and its invisible call to the people - a hard sell. The good part is 38-year old Samuel Page’s self-discovery and healing process. His life as it appears in the beginning is not the truth and readers get to know about the origin of all of his hangups, OCD behavior, loneliness, sense of alienation and disillusionment at the end.

The story slacks between pgs 33 and 77 where it’s more repetitive than forward-moving.

Memorable lines:
‘His camera was latest generation reflex. He was not.’

‘Special Price menu: Marvin’s saddest burger’

‘O love jazz in summer. In madison square park, they often organise concerts in the centre of the park. But I never went because all I listen to is Chet Baker. In truth, I only know one Chet Baker song. In fact it is the only jazz song I know.’

‘I never believed in destiny, yet every second spent in that city gave me the impression of being exactly where everything happens because it’s meant to. An impression which, in a small apartment, came from my own culture, made of characters and stories set there. but people formed the greater part of it. The crowd of strangers I’d come across on the streets every day.’ (check out how many you’ve seen while in NY)

This graphic novel is about a dude named Samuel Page who is essentially trying to escape his problems by taking on a project in New York. For a month he isn't allowed to engage anyone in conversation beyond a simple written note and shoots photos of various public spaces. What he discovers through this project is more than he, and the reader apparently, expected.

This novel is very movie-like in the way it was drawn and written. There's a lot of deep meaning behind certain moments and the main character seems to contemplate life a lot. It's not one of those kinds of graphic novels that you'd pick up for a light read. I enjoyed the art style and the basic concept of the story, but I feel it was trying too hard to be philosophical. There were certain moments where I started to gloss over details and would end up getting lost and having to backtrack to fully understand what I was reading. This made the read less enjoyable for me and was the reason I gave it three stars, but please don't let that deter you from reading this book.

The only other thing that bothered me was the way Sam's hair was drawn. For some reason it reminded me of Unicorn Ryuji from "Kamikaze Girls." It made certain moments of the book less serious for me, but I'm lighthearted in nature and kind of liked that.

Perhaps a grudging four stars for this book, as it forced the reader to have issues with it, that might be ironed out when the text is finalised for the English language publication. It's a love story, one very cinematically set in and about New York, with a photographer doing some weird journalistic study of how the city copes with a silent man, not verbally communicating with anyone. The answer – it gives him his Miss Right, but not the ability to see that (or her). The artwork was good, but definitely not great. The storytelling was awkward to say the least at times, with multiple narrators, and what is the difference between the black on white pages and those that are white on black? Still, this has to go down as an intelligent graphic novel, one that probably comes closest to demanding a re-read and getting it, and a book that provides for some clumsy beats but a lot to engage with.

It's a bit meandering and does require an initial willingness to submit to the mystery, but the text imparts the feeling of heartbreak and loneliness with stunning efficacy and you very easily find yourself captivated as you move through the beautiful, colorful streets of New York.

I’d like to preface off this review by saying I am not deaf or hard of hearing. However, I have friends that are and it is the knowledge and experiences they have shared with me in previous situations that guided me as I read this novel.

The Sound of the World By Heart started off pleasantly enough with an interesting premise, decent art style, and enjoyable prose. I was thoroughly engaged and for the most part, enjoying, (there were a few confusing parts where it wasn’t clear who was speaking) but by the end of the novel I was feeling uncomfortable.

The graphic novel tells the story of Sam, a photojournalist, who decides to take on the challenge of not speaking to anyone for sixty days so that he can write an article about his experience. Sam’s experiment is mostly uneventful until one day after printing a stack of his photographs in black and white, he opens them to find one woman standing out in color. Sam meets this woman again but never engages in conversation with her as he’s still conducting his experiment. Eventually, Sam is able to communicate with this woman, through his mind. (Yes, you read that right.) It turns out that Sam is deaf and is able to hear this woman telepathically. What does this have to do with the photographs? Unclear. We never find that out. (There are a lot of things we never find out.) This is the part where I started feeling uncomfortable. Once again I’d like to reiterate that I am not deaf/hoh and do not speak for that community, but I personally felt that having a deaf character’s soulmate be the one person he could hear was ableist. It felt as though the only reason the love interest was the MC’s soulmate was because the MC could hear her. It also felt like the author were saying that the MC needed to hear (in whatever way) their love interest and a relationship between two deaf/hoh people isn’t as meaningful or real somehow. I’d suggest you’d look into reviews by people who are deaf/hoh for a more profound analysis. (I was unable to find any but if you know of some please don’t hesitate to let me know.)

There were a few enjoyable things about this book though. The art for one reflected the tone of the prose extremely well and the prose itself was nice. The best aspect of this book would have to be the setting. The prose and the art both read as a love letter to New York which seems to be what this graphic novel is underneath.

So, all in all, yes to the art, yes to the writing style, no to the ableism.

Interesting perspective, great structure and execution. Will be recommending.

This book touched my heart in so many ways. The art was beautiful the story was remarkable in that it had not only a beautiful meaning but you have the added joy of finding love for the characters and then being genuinely surprised at the end of the story. I think it is very important for everyone to read this story. Never judge a book by its cover. Never judge people, period.

Impressionistic watercolor scenes of Noo Yawk background a story of a photographer who plans to go sixty-two days with no verbal interaction. (As a fellow photographer I wish I could do that with the models I work with.)
Things are strange to start, as there’s an unseen narrator, rather than the guy we’re following actually doing the talking, or thinking. It’s not till page 43 that she introduces herself; up to then there was no idea if the voice was male or female. She claims to hear his thoughts; telepathy or imagination? Is it the famous lady from the painting? She does say she’s French, after all. At some point it changes to first person, and it works better, but then it switches back.
I was wondering how he communicated when needed; turns out he passes notes. Would have been easier to use his ubiquitous phone, but either way it feels like cheating.
The conceit of having a redhead who appears in the photos—in color, even though the shots are B&W—felt spooky at first, but at the same time intriguing. Not so the dream sequence; that was just disturbing.
I’m of the opinion this graphic novel was longer than it needed to be. There’s a lot of white empty space; the drawings don’t come close to taking up all the room on the page. There’s also far too many drawings of him drinking coffee while walking with his headphones, which makes things a bit boring. And the crashing marbles analogy was just silly.
Joan is smart; talking to the painting would be weird, but telepathy is normal? But then there are plenty of times when he does or says something that makes me think this is either all a dream or he really is crazy, and not just because of the voices in his head. And there’s no way I’m buying the city theory, but then I hate Noo Yawk.
Even though it did a good job at resolving some of the seeming inconsistencies at the end, I was still left far too confused. Couldn’t tell if it was real or not, if it actually happened at all, but I guess I wasn’t supposed to know; that wasn’t the point of the story.

I don't even know how to review this. I think it went way over my head, but I still really enjoyed it. It's compelling, I couldn't stop reading. But I honestly can't even tell you why. I'm definitely going to have to read it again.

Wonderful artwork but I found myself getting bored with the story.

Thanks to netgalley.com and Diamond Book Publishers for the advance PDF file for my honest review, but unfortunately the file doesn't run on the bluefire app and was unable to read what looked like a very interesting graphic novel.

The Sound of the World by Heart was a pretty fantastic tale! The illustration work, for one, is marvelous and pulls you right into the narrative. Anyone recovering from heart break or wanting to enjoy the seemingly peaceful experience of being an observer of urban life, should enjoy this. Mind you, surprises are abound in this story, as the main character finds out that you can't run too far away from serendipity without playing right into its hands. Highly enjoyable! Will definitely recommend!

This is a quick but interesting read. This graphic novel touches on our insecurities, our secrets, our pain and our loves. The illustrations are vivid and pleasing to look at. I was a bit confused by the story line at first but it did come together for me in the end.

I enjoyed this graphic novel and it has been a while since I was able to say that.

The Sound of the World by Heart has an interesting premise--can you live in one of the world's largest cities and not speak a word to anyone? The main character in this graphic novel takes on that task while exploring the New York and taking photographs.

I love the art in this book, even if the story seems a bit lacking. The art reminds me of many classic comics, which draws in the the reader. The story seemed to lose itself. It's a good attempt at showing there are other ways humans communicate, and that the act of communicating with each other is important for survival, but the story took a few turns off this road and didn't seem to bring it around to a cohesive end.

The lure of a social experiment in isolation, particularly in a city as bustling with life as New York City, made this book sound thought provoking and interesting. The art on the cover spoke to a certain level of depth as it was neither too cartoon-ish nor hyper realistic, finding just the right balance to tell the story.

It was here, however, that the positive aspects of the story began to wane and I fell out of love with The Sound of the World by Heart.

The story itself suffered from trying to be, what I feel, something too philosophical. It reached too far and by doing so lost any connection with the reader that would have made the journey of the main character meaningful. I didn't get a sense of what this experiment was actually doing for or to him, so it's purpose was ultimately meaningless.

There were points in the storytelling that didn't make much sense either, such as the mindreading that the main character initially thought was a painting speaking to him (which is a whole other oddity). This loose thread and others like it had me staring at the book at the end wondering, really, what had I just read?

A somewhat redeeming factor of the book was the art style. It really was very good and I hung on through the book because of it. I'd like to see the author do another graphic novel because of this kind of quality artwork, but maybe paired up with a storyteller who has a history of a more cohesive storytelling style.

If you were ever a fan of the movies: Serendipity and The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, you will be interested in this.

I really liked the art (like when he had a door on his chest which opened up and let the girl in , in order for him to finally feel whole) and the odd theme of the story; the counting of numbers, especially the way it ended with him counting her heartbeats--it was a very movie like end. The constant replay of the question "What is your first memory" and the fact that he was deaf and had one song playing in his head at all moments.

I like how a simple story had many deep moments hidden away in the background of the pictures Sam took. I liked how the author used preternatural elements to describe the journey soulmates take to meet each other.

Don't let the 3 stars fool you into thinking this isn't worth a shot, because it is, I really do mean I liked it, when I rate it so.