Book review: Delicates by Brenna Thummler

Delicates

by Brenna Thummler

Finished reading: 03/10/21

My rating: 2.5/5

Delicates is the sequel to Sheets, a graphic novel about laundry, ghosts and growing up. Whilst Sheets alternates between Wendall and Marjorie, Delicates alternates between Marjorie and her classmate Eliza. Eliza doesn't fit in with the other kids in her school and she is obsessed with photographing ghosts. Meanwhile, Marjorie is desperately trying her best to ignore Eliza in order to keep up with the cool kids at school whilst also attempting to keep her ghost friends a secret.

 I really liked seeing the representation of a neurodivergent character coming to terms with their differences. Thummler doesn't explicitly reference Eliza as being autistic, but Eliza certainly had traits characteristic of neurodivergent individuals. Eliza is interesting and quirky, but sadly is punished by her classmates for standing out. 

I loved Eliza as a character but found her storyline a little problematic. The references to suicide felt overly dark for a book targeted at younger readers. There were no trigger warnings and although the subject matter wasn't deeply unsettling, I still felt that it was a little unnecessary and insensitive. The same message could have been portrayed without this. I would have preferred it if the theme of bullying was explored without needing to reference suicide to demonstrate the severity of its effect. I also felt that these references pulled the story in an entirely different direction that didn’t match with the tone of the rest of the two books. I am all for educating younger readers on topics about mental health, but I do not think this book was particularly educational about this subject matter and therefore it would have benefited from not approaching the subject at all. However, suicidal references aside, I still enjoyed Eliza’s personal journey and I’m sure this is one many readers will relate to.

My favourite part of Sheets was Wendall and his world The Land of the Dead. I thought this world was so creative and imaginative and Wendall's character had such a great sense of humour and tone. I was so disappointed that Delicates didn't feature the Land of the Dead didn't particularly feature Wendall either. This wasn’t helped by the fact Marjorie was very unlikable in this book. I wasn’t particularly interested in her story and found myself looking forward to getting back to Eliza’s story. Considering what makes this series stand out is the ghosts, there wasn't a huge amount of time spent with the ghosts in Delicates. I would have really loved to go deeper with what was established in the first novel to learn more about the ghost-lore in this town. Marjorie's storyline focuses on issues surrounding playground politics but it completely took away from what made Sheets so special.

Although we see less of the Land of the Dead, Delicates provided a deeper exploration of Marjorie's town. The use of setting and locations was much stronger than the first novel. I particularly loved the ice cream parlour and the lighthouse. The panels in the darkroom were also brilliantly executed and I loved the contrast of the red light in the dark room compared to the blue toned wash of the other panels. These backdrops definitely gave the story a stronger sense of place and were illustrated beautifully. There also seemed to be a greater level of detail in the artwork of Delicates which I liked as it made me slow down in order to take it all in.

Overall, I enjoyed Delicates, but definitely not as much as Sheets. If we were to see a third instalment of this series, I definitely want to see more time spent with Wendall and his world. I’d also really like to see Wendall and Eliza team up to solve the ghost mysteries from all of Eliza’s newspaper cutting as I really thought this is where this book was leading. But we shall have to wait and see!