Asterios Polyp

Asterios Polyp was a fun read. It was a little tough in the get go, not knowing what the book was supposed to focus on, but that discovery was apart of the fun. I only read it through the once, but after a few pages in I sort of ascertained the style and flow of what was going on. Weird stuff was going on. The narration by the unborn twin brother was weird. The almost Tarantino style of telling the story was weird. The different styles of art for the characters was weird. But all those weird things were really cool.

One weird thing that kept happening was all the little details that kept appearing and disappearing. It took a while for me to start letting go of these little hangups of things that seemed important at first introduction, but then left the story never to be heard about again. Primarily the twin brother idea and the video recording of everything came and went without much consequence. I can see it as character building and growth for Asterios to let someone in that deep, but that could have been just about anything else.

I was also a little weary abstract ways the author decided to start each chapter. The illustration there felt really whimsical but didn't quite resonate with me right away. Not like certain scenes where Asterios became hard blue lines not unlike his blueprints and Hana became pink organic shading, those were a great way to show their personalities in contrasting and harmonic ways. I also enjoyed the contrast between the university area and the midwest area. For a shorter story, much was done in the basic art style to do some heavy world building.

Overall, I was very surprised at the ending but enjoyed it none the less. The art was fun and the story compelling and I would recommend it to others. Specifically others who are full of themselves.