It took a bit to get into kindred. It was very slow going and I felt like I would’ve preferred the novel to the graphic novel because it was a bit hard to understand what was going on. The more you read the more of the story envelopes you and makes you want to continue. Why is this woman going back in time? How come fear and pain keeps taking her back to this one child? Why does time pass in merely seconds/minutes/hours in modern time but could be years in historical time? Why do things go back-and-forth with them like bags and knives and whips and lashes and marks? The graphics are phenomenal . The artwork is amazing and this book gives you a feeling of real history. The story is so complete I don’t feel the need to read the novel but I think eventually I probably will. I understand why this is one so many awards why it’s been on so many best of the best lists. It deserves it and it’s brought new people to the world of Octavia Butler. Definitely a great read that I will recommend to others.

This is a very powerful book, but I have trouble deciding whether I like the graphic novel more or less than the written version. It's just different, and they both have their strengths.

Thank you ABRAMS for the ARC.
I haven't read the original novel this graphic novel is based on, but now I can't wait to get my hands on a copy because I thoroughly enjoyed this reading experience, and I am hoping tere will be many more details and content that didn't make the cut for this graphic adaptation.

I no longer have the ebook I downloaded so I am not able to read and review this title. After switching to a new laptop some of my data was lost. I am sorry for any inconvenience this has caused.

Kris

Once upon a time, I read and fell in grief with Octavia Butler's "Kindred"--by which I mean that it's not a book where love, as a warm and fuzzy feeling, has an easy road. The book broke me and made me rethink the ways in which I participate in broken and exploitative power dynamics, the ways in which I erase others, and the ways in which we are all interdependent. Butler is great that way, and here, Damian Duffy and John Jennings have not just done her justice but raised the bar on what graphic novels and adaptations can do. To say it's an "improvement" upon the original material is a disservice to the audacious imagination of the original, but this is certainly a wonderful, brilliant addition to the "Kindred" canon. It's powerful, visually and narratively, and it works. The foreword by Nnedi Okorafor is worth reading in its own right. Our library purchased this graphic novel immediately and it hasn't stopped circulating since.

See above - I literally can't review it because I haven't been able to obtain a copy and the Netgalley file never worked and support did not resolve this well.

I recommend this for fans of Octavia Butler. But for me, someone who has heard of her but has never read any of her books, it took me awhile to get oriented, and I was a little confused at the beginning. Still, the art was clear and readable, the colors were great, and the story was heavy but satisfying. I only wish the publisher had not archived it so soon, because I was working my way through it slowly and didn't realize I would lose the ability to finish it. :-/

My first time reading this author, and I have to say not bad. Although the art was kinda sketchy looking and took some getting used to. I did enjoy this and would read some of her other works.

This was a hard story to read the first time around. As a graphic novel, it's even harder. Partially because I knew what was coming, and partially because the art depicted the most horrific scenes in a way my imagination never could.

This adaptation did the original novel justice. The plot was perfectly preserved, and the art was hard, gritty, and angular. It wasn't a pretty graphic novel, and it wasn't a pretty story.

Those who have already read Kindred will be pleased with how the story translated. Those who haven't will feel punched in the soul... much like I did the first time, and again reading it again as a graphic novel.

Love how my favorite novel turned out in graphic novel form! Great adaptation!

The only reason this review isn't five-stars is because it's not the original. I thought it preserved much of the feeling of the original, and was true to the themes. I was impressed by how the art felt urgent yet beautiful, even when portraying ugliness. However, I couldn't help but notice that even graphically, there was a change regarding the way the ending felt to me when the story of systemic rape was told by two men. And while the story had to be condensed, it moved so fast that I did not feel myself connecting to the characters, or following their developing relationships as naturally.
Still, it is an important story well- and beautifully-told, and I have made sure our store have more than the normal number of copies on hand. It's definitely one I would recommend to fans of one-off graphic novels, science-fiction, historical fiction, and social justice stories.

This book is amazing. It is an adaptation of Octavia Butler's novel, which I have wanted to read for a long time. The adaptation has given me more incentive to sit down and read it. This is the story of a black woman named Dana that suffers from a unique problem. She finds herself transported from her life in the 1970s to a plantation in the early 19th century. This happens multiple times throughout the book, which takes a huge toll on her.

I think the visual nature of this work makes it so powerful. The reader can see Dana deteriorate both physically and mentally as the book progresses. It gives life to the horrors of slavery in a way that other books I've read just haven't been able to capture. Dana's confusion and fear are relatable, even if it comes from a fantastic situation. The art is perfect for showing these elements of the story. I didn't love the style, but that doesn't detract from the book in any way. The use of color helps to accent things rather than taking center stage.

The cast of characters in this book are part of what made it so great to me. There is just enough of what one would expect to be able to identify certain character types, but Butler adds little things that make them feel fresh. I don't want to say much about the plot, but it does follow events on that 19th century plantation throughout the life of the plantation owner's son. This, along with the jumps in time, give a view of how things changed. It makes the book dynamic in a way. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

I would recommend this book for middle school, high school and up. I have not read the original work by Octavia Butler but now I plan to. The story explores slavery but in a way I've never seen. Dana, a black woman living in the 1970s, married to a white man is suddenly taken back to the 1800s. To a plantation. As if that isn't terrifying enough, the relationship between the characters then and now intertwine in a way that makes surviving even more complicated. It's an amazing story and my head was buzzing afterwards. There are so many questions that would be great in a high school classroom. Plantation owners saw black slaves as animals but does their cruelty make them less human? How did Dana's character change as she grew accustomed to living in the 1800s? What is freedom worth? How far has society come since then? How much further do we have to go? I'm still thinking about it.

What an excellent graphic novel version of Butler's famed story, Kindred. I loved the illustrations - they were top notch and provided depth to the story. Loved this book!

I had really high hopes for this, but it just didn't deliver. Maybe it's because the novel is so extremely great that it's hard for anything else to compare. In some ways it's almost an easier intro to Kindred (which can be a really difficult read), but I can't imagine I would recommend this over reading the novel.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I love that this will make this particular story accessible to so many more people.

Octavia Butler's classic science fiction story is rendered here in captivating visual detail. This graphic novel adaptation presents the story of Dana, a modern African American woman thrust back in time from 1970's California to Antebellum Maryland, where she struggles to survive the horrors of slavery while trying to protect Rufus, distant relative and direct link to her future. Harrowing, complicated, and compelling, this new take on Butler's important novel is sure to draw in new and old readers alike.

Fantastic adaptation! I read Kindred a couple of years ago but this brings the story to life in new ways.

I read Kindred a month or so before I was able to get this for review, so the story was quite fresh in my mind going into this and I have to say that it is a very faithful adaptation that I feel would be an excellent way to introduce more people to the work of Octavia Butler.

The story itself is one that is hard to handle but incredibly important and really brings a focus to the meaning of identity and as the title suggests the meaning of kindred. It really shows the difference between self identity and public identity (that which other people assign to you), as well as what it means to be family with someone through experiences vs through blood. It’s a novel full of hard choices.

The only fault I truly had with this adaptation was the art style. I’m super picky on art, which just one of those biases that I’ve had for a long time (I avoided a good number of excellent cartoons as a kid because I hated how something was shaded, go figure). I liked the use of the colors in the various parts of the story, and how Dana’s present day life was executed in grey tones while her ventures into the past were given full color. While I’m not fond of the more sketchy outlining I do think it evokes raw emotion more readily then something that is really polished looking. In fact I appreciated that it wasn’t super polished, because this story is mess and painful and the art really gets that through.

I do still really recommend grabbing a copy of the actual novel, but this graphic novel adaptation is an excellent introduction to Butler.