The Lost Path

by Amelie Flechais

[pamela]

It's challenging to pinpoint exactly why I didn’t like The Lost Path. There was nothing especially bad about it, but certainly nothing specifically great either. Half the art was beautiful, half of it was bland, and the story was, unfortunately, particularly unoriginal. Amélie Fléchaisis definitely a talented artist, but I felt, overall, that her style was inconsistent.

Stylistically I think that The Lost Path was written in the wrong format. It began with a gorgeously illustrated introductory story but quickly became a graphic novel. Because of that, the beautiful, artistic illustrations that you saw on the cover and the beginning of the book gave way to black and white line drawings that did absolutely nothing to keep my interest (although I do hold out hope that this was simply due to the fact that I had an ARC and not a finished product). I feel like it would have been served better had it been an illustrated story rather than a graphic novel. There would have been more scope for magic and description, which could have been accentuated by a full illustration in Amélie Fléchais’ inimitable style. As it was, the first quarter of The Lost Path was clichéd imagery and dialogue. The whole book is only 103 pages long, and yet it took me nearly two weeks to get through. I kept opening it up, getting immediately bored and wandering away to do something else for a few days.

The characters aren’t very well developed. Amélie Fléchais has tried to write a world of mystery and magic, focusing on the feeling evoked through her art, rather than giving any real life to her characters. The plot is simple, so the characters really needed some depth to be able to carry it. The creatures that they meet in the forest didn’t feel developed either, and I really just got the impression that Fléchais shoehorned them in to have the opportunity to draw a neat monster. They feature in a series of events that have been and gone before the reader has even turned the page.

The prose is messy and didn’t tie together in any coherent fashion. This was not helped by the fact that the art style changes from page to page. Most of the time this makes sense, as the art mirrors the theme of the boys’ fantasies, but on other pages, there wasn’t any real reason that I could see for the change. For a graphic novel, this was a poor stylistic choice, as the reader relies so heavily on visual cues to help move along the plotline. Again, there is a possibility that this is due to the fact that I was reading an ARC. The finished product may do away with some of these inconsistencies; however, I can only review what I had. And what I had made very little sense.

As an artist, Amélie Fléchais is five stars, but unfortunately, The Lost Path is not an art book. It’s a children’s story. If you want to buy a book for the pretty pictures, then this one is definitely worth your while. If you want a story that combines with art to create a magical world that children and adults alike will love? I think you might be out of luck with this one.