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Beautiful darkness
94 pages
A deceptively adorable descent into the darkest, most ruthless corners of human nature.
What it feels like
Reading this graphic novel feels like finding a beautifully painted music box in the middle of a rotting forest. It is a masterclass in dissonance, lulling you into a false sense of security with its delicate watercolors and sweet-faced characters before plunging you into a dread-soaked exploration of cruelty and survival. The pacing is steady and deliberate, allowing the creeping horror of the characters' pettiness and greed to slowly infect the pastoral setting. It is an incredibly bleak, cynical experience that strips away the polite veneer of society to reveal the feral instincts underneath. Fans of dark fairy tales and folk horror will be utterly captivated by this harrowing, unforgettable juxtaposition of the adorable and the grotesque.
- Mood
- macabre
- dread-soaked
- eerie
- deceptively whimsical
- Tone
- deceptive
- cynical
- bleak
- detached
- unsettling
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- the banality of evil · loss of innocence · societal breakdown · cruelty of nature · survival at any cost
- The writing
- Relies on the jarring dissonance between delicate, candy-colored watercolor illustrations and stark, unforgiving narrative brutality.
- The arc
- Moves from a state of disorienting whimsy into a chilling, ruthless acceptance of brutality.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love folk horror, dark fairy tales, and the unsettling juxtaposition of cute aesthetics with profound bleakness.
Content notes
- gore
- animal cruelty
- decay and corpses
- violence
- disturbing imagery
About the book
Kerascoët's and Fabien Vehlmann's unsettling and gorgeous anti-fairy tale is a searing condemnation of our vast capacity for evil writ tiny. Join princess Aurora and her friends as they journey to civilization's heart of darkness in a bleak allegory about surviving the human experience. The sweet faces and bright leaves of Kerascoët's delicate watercolors serve to highlight the evil that dwells beneath Vehlmann's story as pettiness, greed, and jealousy take over. Beautiful Darkness is a harrowing look behind the routine politeness and meaningless kindness of civilized society.
Description from Open Library.
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