Stone Heart

[psocoptera]

The Stone Heart, book two of the Nameless City graphic novel trilogy by Faith Erin Hicks (my thoughts on the first one here). I thought this was great - really well paced and structured, some powerful emotional stuff and cool action sequences while maintaining a sort of consistency and naturalism in the art. (Maybe naturalism isn't what I mean - I mean that this is a comics work that feels more interested in the story than in building up to cool splash panels. There's a lot of great character work in expressions and body language but it feels conservative in terms of transitions/camera angles/"22 panels" business, without ever feeling at all static or boring.) Story wise, no spoilers but duuuude stuff is haaaaappening. Junie picked it up, got interested, went back and read the first one, and now we both agree we can't wait for the last one, luckily coming out at the end of this very September. Definitely recommended - if you like ATLA/Korra kinds of themes about kids exploring where they want to stand with respect to their cultures or families with a background of looming large-scale conflict, there's some good stuff here.