Amulet, Book 8: Supernova was honestly a disappointment, especially after waiting two years for it.
The graphic novel continues the story of the stonekeeper Emily that has been going for the past seven volumes. In the last book Emily lost control of her stone powers and turned into a massive firebird and was trapped in the void. Trellis vows to get her out of the Void (which is kind of like a mind prison.)
So we lead up to the first problem I had with this. For as much of a cliffhanger Kibuishi left me on with Book 7, this book didn't focus on that VERY important plot point. Like, at all. In fact, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝟗𝟎 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐍𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐧. For all of you who didn't know, Navin is Emily's little brother. I guess Kibuishi wanted to expand on Navin's character or give him more pages, but the Navin plot seemed contrived and just really confusing. What does Navin racing around on a bike and piloting a walking mech have literally anything to do with the main plot? Who are all these new characters? For taking up most of the book, the Navin plot was really boring and confusing.
Okay, so now the second problem. For the times when Emily was actually on the darn page (which wasn't very often) I had absolutely no idea what she was doing or where she was going. There were several weird plot twists thrown in concerning her could have been really intriguing, but they had maybe one page per!
It was also a huge plot hole that Emily was able to get out the Void without anyone's help or even really trying. It almost seems like Kabuishi went hog wild writing the Navin scenes and was like "Oh crap I forgot about the Emily firebird thing! I have two pages to resolve that! Crap!"
This is all not to say that Kibuishi is not a talented writer or illustrator, because he is. I loved the first four Amulet books. And even the art for this one was really impressive at times. I appreciate that, okay?
But I do think that this series has lost most of its appeal for me with this new installment. What first drew me into this series was the steampunk-y vibe of it, the unique art, the cool Amulet, the intriguing plot, etc. But it all declined starting from the fifth book and now it reads more like a Star Wars novel.
I appreciate Kibuishi's artwork. But this volume was such a disappointment.