Member Reviews
If you ever wonder how life for the Brönte Sisters might look like, this graphic novel will for sure provide the information you so desire.
Whit a pretty aestethic style, the author is able to convey feelings and attitudes of the sisters, their brother and father during one of the hardest times in their lives, as well as their personal struggle in the path to be published authors.
A quick read that will provide a great background to this amazing trio.
An e-ARC of this book was kindly provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I’ll start by saying I really enjoyed the premise of this comic! It was intriguing to me to see the character designs of the Brontes and I feel the illustrations were impeccable.
The downside of this comic for me personally, was I found it too disjointed. It made it hard to follow the flow of the story. I feel like subtext under the illustrations may have helped this at points. I loved key moments such as the creation of the Bronte’s pen names and the telling the publisher the truth at the end. I feel this comic had much more potential to focus in on the sisters more and their brother less.
All in all, I enjoyed this as a Bronte fan but think the points I mentioned would have helped to improve the comic. The visual aspects of the novel are fantastic and flawless.
Extremely dark graphic novel about the Bronte sisters. I was not a fan, it seemed to pick up in a strange spot and it was way to gothic.
"You stink to high heaven!"
I love the manga style artwork. I love how the art sequence has been presented. The characters start out somewhat grumpy and frustrated. But that's fine. It's the Brontë sisters looking out for each other.
One wouldn't publish her poems, one is involved with a married man, their father is suffering from bad health and their only brother is leading a futile life.
The story gives a glimpse of how writers struggled during those days and what they had to compromise with.
This graphic novel highlights the difficult times the Brontë sisters and their family had to face, their complicated relationships and what the sisters had to do to survive as writers and the tragedy the family had to face.
Got all the right feminism vibes and yes, more power to women writers!
Now I want to read Wuthering Heights.
Thank you Authors and Publisher for the advance reading copy.
2.5/5
this was a really interesting look into the lives of three incredibly influential writers, whose lives have always been somewhat of a mystery to me despite having read their work in school. unfortunately, it felt a bit rushed to me, and i even struggled to keep the sisters straight, having to take a screenshot of a page where their names were listed so i could keep track of who was who. additionally, while i really like the inked look of the art, sometimes it felt a little bit too messy and unrefined. it felt like this graphic novel needed a lot more room to breathe because i saw hints of really interesting and complex stories and personalities in it that were never fully realized. i think with some more pages, the book would have been a lot more powerful too in regards to the sisters being women writers during a time when it was highly frowned upon for women to write. i still enjoyed it, but i feel like there were a lot of missed opportunities in this read, which is really disappointing.
I'm sorry but this was just... not good.
Both the art and the writing was just not good. If you want to know something about Bronte sisters, maybe stick to Wikipedia or an actual biography, not this.
Review copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you NetGalley and Lerner Publishing for the opportunity to read an eArc of Bronte.
While maybe not the most accurate depiction of the Brontes, I think this is a great introduction for younger readers looking to learn more about them. I think it makes their sisterly relationship seem more immature than we understand it to be, It also wasn't always clear when the time was passing within the story.
I liked the simple illustration style, I think it managed to really suit the story being told and place more focus on the Brontes. I think the black and white color scheme works for such moody, gothic ladies.
It seems to really gloss over some of the ugly parts of Charlotte, especially her attempts at suppressing her sister's work after their deaths. There was also a lot of focus on Branwell, which while he is obviously a very important factor in their lives, I feel like stories tend to give him too much attention as the cost of the sisters.
I was really excited to read this story of the Bronte sisters by Manuela Santoni! The Bronte sisters are some of my all-time favorite authors, and I was so excited to learn more about their lives. I love these comic book adaptations, and this one had a really great spin by telling the story of the sisters rather than retelling their popular novels. I think it is really important to study the great works of literature, and adapting them into comic book format makes them super fun, quick, and easy to read. I was impressed with the book; for a shortened version of the text, the authors did a fantastic job of selecting the important parts of the text, highlighting and explaining it in a fun and easy way. I thought that the illustrations were very cute and would add helpful visualizations for younger readers.
Brontë is a series of biographical vignettes about the life of the Brontë sisters, beautifully illustrated in a stark, inky black and white style. Prior to reading this comic, I knew very little about the Brontë sisters annd their family troubles, so it was very interesting to learn more about these classic authors.
The Brontë Sisters' story is quite a depressing one, unfortunately, and I quickly remembered why I rarely read biographies. While it was a very well done and moody book that was easy to get into, it just wasn't for me. There were sections of their lives that was rapidly glossed over, and as someone who is not familiar with them, there were some confusing passages for me. I do recommend it to fans of the Brontës however!
I enjoyed reading this short graphic novel.
It's a short way to know the life of the Brontë sisters.
The drawings were consistent with the type of life they had. Dark and gloomy
But some drawings were unintelligible. I could not understand what was I suppose to see.
Thank you to NetGalley and Lerner Publishing for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of Bronte. The art of this graphic novel perfectly compliments the work of its subjects, the three Bronte sisters: dark, sweeping, intimate, full of life and passion. The look into the Bronte family's lives, including their financial struggles and their dissolute brother, is very well done, with both character design and choices clearly distinguishing one sister from another. The strong bonds of friendship and sisterhood between the three are also evident and the struggles of women at the time are carefully presented. Back matter is also useful and well chosen.
Rating: 3/5 stars.
“Brontë” by Manuela Santoni is an adaptation in graphic novel format of the lives of Emily, Anne, and Charlotte Brontë. The story is focused on their lives from just prior to the start of their writing careers, to their untimely deaths. While I enjoyed the book, I found it was lacking in a few areas. I appreciated the monochromatic art style, and felt it suited the overall tone of the book well. However, it could be a little hard at times because of the lack in contrast between characters to tell just who was who in some of the panels. The story jumped around a fair bit as well, as it covered a fairly sizeable time period, and there was not always a good indication of the length of these jumps. This made the book a little hard to understand and follow. Despite this, I did like the book, and would recommend it to young readers who are wanting to learn more about the lives of the Brontë sisters.
*I received a complimentary copy of this book on NetGalley and have provided an honest review.*
Having recently read several other depictions of the Brontë siblings, I was able to focus less on the information and more on its conveyance. The narrative was well paced and informative, being paired by monochromatic artistry that, for the most part, aided in the telling. Perhaps not as exciting as other accounts of this famous trio, this work would be an excellent tool to partner with reading “Jane Eyre” or “Wuthering Heights.”
What a page turner! Manuela Santoni has done an incredible job with this graphic novel! The powerfully crafted illustrations in this graphic novel will bring readers a stark new understanding of the lives of the Bronte sisters. These strong women pushed back against abuse, oppression and self-doubt, and this insight will bring a new appreciation for their writings. There are so many themes that are still relevant today, from the sisterhood to the affairs to the secrets to the substance abuse. This graphic novel will make readers want to revisit the Bronte sisters' novels with a newfound understanding. Outstanding!
This was an beautiful and simple graphic novel about the brontë sisters. I knew their story already before i read it, but the author did an amazing job with telling it in an easier to understand way with simple but gorgeous illustrations. It really gives off the victorian vibe.
(personal side note: I just wanted to say that i love the bronte sisters, but i somehow have a soft spot for Emily.)
If you don’t know about their personal life and are interested to get to know more about them, i would definitely recommend checking this graphic novel out!
This book is a unique read all about the Bronte sisters. I have been really interested in them since I was young (my Mom watched a lot of the film adaptations of their work) and became even more intrigued when I read Jane Eyre for an English class in University. The family is packed full of fantastic female writers, but their back story isn't so kind.
This story takes liberties. The author of this story obviously wasn't there with them, so you would have to take some liberties for this historical fiction graphic novel. I do think that Manuela did a good job and made the story very enticing. It was an interesting peak into a take of their personal lives.
I did think the art style was a little weird. The illustrations just didn't sit right with me. Overall though, the book was a nice, laid back read about some famous writers.
Two out of five stars.
Thank you to NetGalley, Lerner Publishing Group and Graphic Universe for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.
I always appreciate a graphic novel that will be a good addition to my library. While I don't think this will fly off the shelves, this is going to be great for my students who want to learn more but struggle with reading.
***Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review***
An interesting look at the Bronte sisters and their accomplishments.
I've always been curious about the Bronte sisters. Having not read any of the works that have since made them famous, Manuela Santoni's Bronte seemed like a good place to start. I was ultimately disappointed to find that this book gave troubled brother Branwell Bronte center stage, with Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte reduced to flat, two-dimensional background roles. The Bronte sisters were forced to write under male pen names in order to pursue their creative passions and literary dreams. To write a book about them that focuses primarily on the actions of their brother seems counterintuitive and tone-deaf. To me, while the art style was striking and helped me differentiate between the characters, the font choice (specifically, the choice to type the dialogue over hand-drawn speech bubbles) was a little jarring. However, I did like the mixture of single-panel pages and full-dialogue pages. Manuela Santoni is clearly a talented artist who would be better suited to working with original subject matter.
Wonderful graphic novel about the Bronte sisters. It's a short and easily readable narrative of the three sisters and their path to producing their most famous works. It's a brief glance into their lives, but a great introductory into the figures who wrote some great classics that we know today as Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Shirley, etc. Highly recommend to have in an English classroom, and suitable to middle school and high school students.