Don’t let the phrase “nursery rhymes” on the cover of this book deceive you. The Envious Siblings by Landis Blair is one f***ed-up, twisted book and it is NOT for kids or the faint of heart. Mkay?
Eight gleefully macabre vignettes by an award- winning comics artist, as delightful as they are deadly.
Inspired by the dark imagination of Edward Gorey, Envious Siblings is a twisted and hauntingly funny debut. Comics artist Landis Blair interweaves absurdist horror and humor into brief, rhyming vignettes at once transgressive and hilarious. In Blair’s surreal universe, a lost child watches as bewhiskered monsters gobble up her fellow train passengers; a band of kids merrily plays a gut-churning game with playground toys; and two sisters, grinning madly, tear each other apart. These charmingly perverse creations take ordinary settings—a living room, a subway car, a playground— and spin them in a nightmarish direction.
Envious Siblings heralds a brilliant new cartooning talent, and will captivate readers who have thrilled to the lurid fantasies of Roald Dahl, Quentin Blake, Charles Addams, Shel Silverstein, and Tim Burton.
The illustrations do most of the storytelling in this book, and the storytelling is pretty freaking twisted. Like, SUPER dark and twisted, and if you don’t have an appreciation for dark, twisted humor, then you won’t enjoy this book.
But if you DO enjoy the dark and twisted, then I’m sure you’ll find plenty to … enjoy? … appreciate, let’s go with appreciate. Plenty to appreciate about this book! The black and white illustrations are whimsical, and at first glance, seem simply charming. But as soon as you start paying attention, you get a sense for the dark and morbid turn these illustrated stories will take.
Perfect for adults to enjoy in the lead-up to Halloween, look for The Envious Siblings in stores October 8th. It’s the dark, f***ed-up collection of nursery rhymes you didn’t know you needed.
Novel Novice 
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