The Grémillet Sisters is something a little different, and it immediately jumped out at me. With an Italian creative team, and a story set in Paris, the book has a feel that is already unique to itself, but when you add in the stunning imagery by artist Alessandro Barbucci it really pops.
The story follows three young sisters, Sarah, Cassiopeia, and Lucille. Sarah, the oldest of the siblings, feels like she needs to look after her younger siblings, and it seems like she sometimes forgets to slow down and just be a kid for a white. Cassiopeia loves princesses, sparkly things, and is just discovering boys. And Lucille, the youngest, is obsessed with cats, almost constantly wearing her cat onesie, she spends her time at home playing with her own kitty, and when out and about she frequently sneaks off to feed the local strays.
The book begins with Sarah having a dream, one that she's been having repeatedly for a while now. She's inside a strange, almost magical forest, following these weird floating jellyfish. Eventually, she comes to this huge tree that has a glass house built into its branches. Peeking inside, she sees a little jellyfish sitting alone on a bed. Unfortunately, her dream never goes beyond this point, so she's always left wondering just what this means. Desperate to find out, she gets her sisters to help her investigate.
Sarah asks her mother about the forest and the strange jellyfish she seems to avoid the subject, leaving as quickly as she can. Investigating through their mothers things in the attic, they discover a cashe of old photos, one of which shows their mum stanging in front of the tree from Sarah's dream.
There's something of a mystery to this book, and the questions as to why Sarah's having these strange dreams drives a lot of the narrative forward at the start of the book, but isn't the only focus of the book, as we also get to learn a lot about the sisters and their relationships to each other, complete with some personal conflict. Ultimately, though, these conflicts and the central mystery come together for a conclusion that's somewhat surprising, and a little moving too.
The story isn't hugely complex, and moves with a decent pace that it keeps you interested, but the art definitely helps to keep interest. Every single panel looks beautiful, and there's never a dull moment; even when it's just a mundane scene of the sisters hanging out together talking in their living room. Barbucci manages to cram so many little details into the backgrounds that I found myself stopping for a moment just to look through everything on the page more than once.
Overall, The Grémillet Sisters is a decent book, that manages to work an engaging little mystery into a very real family, one that loves each other, but has conflicts just like everyone else. Whilst I'm not sure what could come next, as this book is labelled as a first volume, I'd definitely be happy to read the next one to find out.
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