I started reading Mae having no background beyond the description:

Mae's beloved older sister, Abbie, has been missing for years. Mae has her theories about where Abbie might be. But nowhere in her wildest imagination do those theories encompass a fantasy world full of terrifying monsters, power-hungry nobles, and nefarious scientists. That is, until Abbie suddenly reappears in Mae's world. And not alone.
Let's be honest, that's an intriguing description for a story and I was looking for something interesting to fill my day off (yay for taking days off during the work week). As a note, I have been provided a free digital copy by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

By a quarter of the way through, it was clear this was leaning heavy on the novel part of Graphic Novel, and I switched my reading intentions from stories put together to continuous narrative and was rewarded for the mindset change. 

A little bit of background before I dig in. In 2015, Gene Ha launched a kickstarter to publish the graphic novel Mae (Vol.1), which had already been written and drawn and was just waiting publishing at that point. Ha's Kickstarter goal was met in 36 HOURS!!! That's amazing and shows how strong the fan base was. Then several step goals later and a lot of work and it finally went to print. I'm super jealous I didn't get my hands on a hard copy version (and might just buy one for my shelf).

Overall, it's a surprisingly quick read, done up in chapters, and not quite the full story, being only Vol. 1 and waiting for the rest of their adventure. For the most part, beautifully rendered, but I felt a little thrown off by close faces, which had that kind of CG/Sims style sheen to them. The action scenes are visually fantastic. It's probably for the older end of YA, given the detail on some of the more gruesome stuff. 

As a side note, Ha addressed diversity in Science Fiction with humor and a little bit of nerdy wit. There are throughout a lot of pop culture references that hopefully won't be lost to time (Dr. Who, Harry Potter, etc.), but aren't required for understanding the story itself, if anything they just reinforce the ways that different characters interact with one another.

That said, it's an entirely incomplete story. It feels like it's only just the beginning. Would've liked to see it end at something that at least felt like a natural break.

Looking forward to see where this goes in Vol. 2.

I like the world building and the characters. Story is interesting. I love Doctor Who and Harry Potter referances. Illustrations are amazing.

An interesting art style, like something from the PS1 era of video games, but it works well with the odd fantasy setting.