Maria Llovet's Eros/Psyche

Maria Llovet's Eros/Psyche
By  Maria Llovet

ISBN: 9781950912407
144 Pages
Available in Hardcover and Kindle/Comixology

TW: Blood, Suicide

Synopsis:

From the artist of the bestselling Faithless series...comes Eros/Psyche.

La Rosa's female boarding school is paradise for young girls...but only if you follow the rules. Because, if you disobey them, you can end up expelled, or even worse, dead.

Sara and Silje are two students learning the rules of the school, which includes classes by day...and the casting of curses and spells by night. A love develops between the two, which is tender, but threatens to break under the weight of the dark secret society within La Rosa.

My Thoughts:

The artwork in Maria Llovet's Eros/Psyche is stunning. The artist is an established graphic novelist with a very distinct style that is lovely. The color palate works really well to give the story an appropriately dark feel. The story, on the other hand, is a little lacking.

The premise is very promising. Magic, mystery, secret societies. What's not to love? Except, when you get down to it, there is little of what was promised. The story has inadequate exposition to actually see many of these things beyond minor allusions. In fact, it has a shortage of dialogue at all, making it jerky and hard to follow at times.

There is mystery around the school. That is made clear from page one. But all the mystery that you see seems to revolve around new students arriving and then getting the "white uniform" and being removed, in a very Survivor "voted off the island" format.

As far as the magic? I didn't see it. The synopsis mentions casting curses and spells by night. But the only seemingly witchy reference you actually notice is that the students are always collecting different herbs. Everything else they do is mundane things like making necklaces or collecting bird eggs. 

The relationship between Sara and Silje, the two main characters, is extremely subtle. It is sweet and isn't graphic or over the top. The use of plants growing to represent different stages of their friendship and developments in the story was really interesting. 

The ending felt very "M. Night Shyamalan plot twist"-ish. That's not always a bad thing, and in this case it worked well to tie it all together and wrap it back around to page one, but it still left as many questions as it answered. Overall, despite it's flaws, it was an enjoyable read.

I received a complimentary digital ARC of Maria Llovet's Eros/Psyche from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. This graphic novel book is a collection of all 5 volumes of the comic (despite the fact that the Goodreads page has it marked as #1-#4). It is currently available for preorder and will be released on October 12, 2021.

Parent's Guide:

Maria Llovet's Eros/Psyche, while not overly complicated, is confusing and not for the faint of heart. There are scenes with blood - as well as a suicide - that make it not really child friendly. There are also several images of nudity. I would recommend this book for upper level teens who like gothic art and sapphic love stories.