From Above. An (Info)Graphic Novel (2025)
225pp, Fiction
Notes
2025-12-14
A lazy book.
The cover proclaims...
"The author succeeds in his graphic challenge: to tell a story using geometric symbols and pictograms." -Le Monde
which tbh seem like the very weakest of praise, a bit like, the food is edible.
The book then: The story is middling but the details felt constantly off, like the author didn't know we don't call it "high school" in Britain, and we don't have "group homes". Hospital visiting times don't work like that. A cruise ship is docked near a deserted beach, that doesn't make sense where in England is thsi scene happening again?
Finding out the author isn't British explains all this to some extent but then why not do a bit of research into the country about which you're writing? (Lazy)
A more damaging problem is that the "infographic" style (characters are represented by dots etc.) serves only to distance the reader without providing any benefit.
Generally the purpose of the visual language of information graphics is to pare away distracting details to show the salient points transparently. What are the salient points of this story? Who knows. A whole page is devoted to showing us how to make a masturbation device out of a thermos flask (which some kids are apparently then able to sell for £30!). In a story which involves multiple institutional settings - police station, child services ("group home"), hospital - this feels like a missed opportunity; why not use the style to surface and interrogate the structure of those systems its a great fit for that kind of work. Instead the style seems to have been chosen simply as a quick and easy way to illustrate a thin story. (Lazy)
As someone who makes diagrams for a living people give me books like this (eg those excerable David McCandles ones) for presents, very thoughtful, but I'd prefer to buy my own maps and graphics books. Buy me a book that people who are expert in your domain would read.