Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

From Goodreads:
'It came from the woods. Most strange things do.'

Five mysterious, spine-tingling stories follow journeys into (and out of?) the eerie abyss.

These chilling tales spring from the macabre imagination of acclaimed and award-winning comic creator Emily Carroll.

Come take a walk in the woods and see what awaits you there...

WOW.

I read this collection in a graphic fiction course I was in for a few weeks before dropping it this past semester, and this book was the first one on the syllabus. And my god this book is amazing. I loved reading this book so much. As I'm sure I have mentioned, I love fairy tales and I love fairy tale retellings. Carroll weaves old-timey feeling with horror, which worked so well with the creepy and amazing artwork. I am glad that I read this during the daytime and not at nighttime as I'm sure I would have been sleeping with the lights on. 

The artwork is incredible. It adds to the overall chill factor and creepiness. Carroll's artwork is equally stark and lush, using few colours to create a scene. This book is so creepy. Even though it's fairy tales, this is not your Walt Disney fairytale. These are creepy, grim and horrifying fairy tales. The artwork combined with her writing and unique conventions for re-telling classic stories in an unsettling way. Each of the five fairy tale re-tellings had something interesting and unique. Each one was unsettling in its own way. Although it was visual storytelling, it unsettled me as much as a non-graphic novel would do, probably due to the words and the storylines that go with it, which is a sign of good authorship (I dislike horror movies for this reason, because most of them rely too much on shock horror or jump scares, rather than unsettling the audience). 

You are really able to feel a lot from the images and prose. The stories are deep and have active heroines at the forefront, which is great to see. While each story is individual, there is a slight thread that weaves through (the thread being, venturing into the woods). The woods represent darkness, loss of innocence, entering the unknown, which Carroll plays on and feeds into the fear of the unknown. There is a line in the epilogue that really drives this all home and makes it all the more wonderful.

Through the Woods is wonderful. I loved every page of it. It is without a doubt the best favourite graphic novel I have ever read. It opened up a whole new genre of fairy tale re-tellings for me, and I am so glad I had the opportunity to read this collection. It was tense from the word go, and did not ease up on the unsettling and macabre nature. I'm going to give Through the Woods 5/5, and would advise not reading it at night.