A great graphic novel with excellent artwork and a well done story. I really enjoyed the story and this book is a quick read. Once you start, you will not want to put this one down! Although this is fictional, it really captured the intense combat situations and the horrors of war, the men who were stretcher bearers went through in WW1. An truly inspirational book.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

A short but much needed read about the experience of being a stretcher bearer during WWII. Logically I knew something like that must have existed, but I had never really given thought of the emotional job of transporting the dead and wounded in battle.

The story was straightforward, a little basic, but that lended itself to introducing difficult topics with younger readers (e.g. high school). I loved the art style and appreciated the minimal use of colors.

Incredibly dull to read, and I found it hard to stay engaged with for an extended amount of time.
I left wishing I'd instead been handing a nonfiction book, rather then a piece of historical fiction

One of those books that feels (rightfully so) to be a labour of love, but is not the better for it. It's a black-and-white-and-blue-only look at some Allied stretcher-bearers whose job it is to go about the battlefields of Europe in WWI and recover their wounded. The art certainly doesn't help us keep track of who is who, especially with the near-uniform reluctance to be there that all the characters obviously shared. Also, the lettering is done in a pretty amateurish fashion – looking great at first glance, but just emphasising precisely the wrong words (and far too many of them) to make it seem like realistic dialogue, and throwing up too many instances of balloons being in the wrong position, meaning I was reading things in the wrong order. And when you've got the more high-octane scenes of the men trying to do their work under fire, and overlapping gabbles, that and the attendant typos are even less of a help.

Those scenes do have an undeniable drama, but when the book proves it's really going to concentrate on the older warrior and the rookie with the urge to quit, it also proves it doesn't really have the story arc a book like this deserves – the plot is their colleagues come along for a bit, get killed off, join in, get killed off, etc. It doesn't get to feel thoroughly 'worthy', but it did seem to have a dutiful respect for the men, which again is a decent approach to have, but not when you're trying to produce a dramatic narrative. As a tribute to the bravery of these unsung soldiers this is fine, but as a read for fun it's lacking.

Delightful isn't right word for this book, but it was definitely well written and drawn. This is a stirring account of what medic teams during World War I went through on the front lines. Constantly dodging artillery shells while running around aimlessly looking for wounded. Wounded who might not even make it if they do get them off the frontlines. This graphic novel catches the horrors medics teamed face back in the day and the mental trauma that they suffered from while still trying to complete their duties. An excellent read for those into learning about the horrors of war.

I received this book for free through NetGalley in exchange for a honest review. This review will be posted closer to the publishing date on Goodreads and any retail outlets.

I received a Free digital version of this book via NetGalley.

<i>The Stretcher Bearers</i> begins with Maxwell Fox running for his life before a shell lands and knocks him unconscious. From there we flashback to September 26, 1918, with Maxwell learning the workflow of the stretch bearers in support of US combat troops.

This short graphic novel details Maxwell and his small unit of stretcher bearers experience with the 4th Infantry “Ivy” Division during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. In showing the experience of the First World War, it makes it clear that combat could be muddy, wet, violent, and very dangerous. We see soldiers injured or killed by various causes gunfire, shells, gas, shell splinters or other methods.

While the artists appears to have done there work in accurately representing the locales and uniforms, the story unfortunately is a fairly standard war tale of attrition and sacrifice concluding with a Hallmark-ish ending.

Beyond the fairly standard war story, the characters fall into typical military archetypes: the angry cynical soldiers, the young soldier full of grit and the wise older man. The Germans, if portrayed at all are seen as husky brutes killing any who get in their way.

Not a bad first effort, and for those just learning about warfare or WW1 could find it of interest, but those more steeped in military history are not likely to find much of interest here.

3.5 stars

A touching WWI tragedy with a bittersweet ending. The story isn’t exceptionally original, but I enjoyed it & found it worth a read. The art is quite good, the strongest part of this graphic novel imo.

[What I liked:]

•The art is really good! It effectively portrays action & movement without cluttering the page or causing confusion about what is happening. I also appreciate how much the characters’ facial expressions & body language communicate.

•The ending is really touching! I don’t want to give it away, but it strikes a nice balance between a happy ending & a realistic one for a war story.

•The dialogue is decent, & the character development is too, for the length of this story.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•There are several spelling & grammar mistakes in the hand lettering, like “halt” is spelled “hault”, your & you’re are misused, & several plural word forms have an unnecessary possessive apostrophe added. I realize this is an ARC copy, but there was just a higher than average rate of small textual errors.

•There are also anachronistic idioms used in the dialogue, which does mildly annoy me in historical fiction. For example, “batsh*t” was not in use until much later than 1918.

•The German soldiers were portrayed as kinda one-dimensional evil villains, which seemed like an over the top & lazy generalization to me.

CW: combat scenes, death, injuries, PTSD

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]