Shannon Messenger’s Keeper Of The Lost Cities (KOTLC) graphic novel, volume one, gives a clear and concise picture of the first part of the book; however, the art style for the characters is not the best.
As an avid reader, I have read many different types of books and graphic novels. I currently own over 200 books, which include all eleven books in this series, excluding the special edition version of book one.
While reading, I judged the book based on the characters’ looks and how closely it follows the original storyline.
Character Looks: Many of the characters look drastically different from how they are portrayed on the covers of the chapter books, which threw me off. The design had the lips too large and the eyes unnervingly small with pointed faces.
Story Line: I often find that in some renditions of books, regardless of whether it’s a graphic novel or a movie, there are likely to be a few missing scenes of main events or key moments in the storyline. Throughout the graphic novel, you get all the vital information as to what is currently going on; however, while reading, I was surprised that a good chunk of the information from the book that I found to be very important was missing.
Overall, I was not impressed, and while I love the series, the graphic novel was not what I had imagined when I had pre-ordered it. Regardless of what I imagined, the story was accurate to the book, and other than the characters’ looks, the art was amazing.
Keeper Of The Lost Cities graphic novel, volume one, was released on November 7, 2023, and volume two, part one, was released on December 2, 2025.
