by Neil Gaiman
“Melinda thinks the sun looks beaten.”
More poetry than prose, Melinda is very short graphic novel bound as a limited edition hardcover and is heavily illustrated by Dagmara Matuszak with full page black and white drawings as well as half page color plates pasted in. It’s a sad, brief walk through a day in the life a homeless 7-year-old girl in a future where machines rule and man seems forgotten or extinct. Her only friend is a robot that tells her stories like a robot and three bears, or the little robot and the big bad wolf, or the robot and the beanstalk.
Melinda reads much like a children’s book but is dark with a certain resonance. You might imagine this is what happens when our machine-child outgrows us, its parents, and forgets us like we’ve forgotten our parents, the ancient mammals of a world long gone.
The recommendation is to read it twice to start absorbing its affect.
“Her bait’s a wish and nothing more.”
3+ stars
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