The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

The Husband was VERY excited for this book for me...  He read an article about it and requested it from the library for me as a surprise.  It took a few weeks to arrive - there was only 1 copy at our public library - but when he presented it to me, he had the biggest smile on his face.  I cracked this open on May 10th and finished it on the 15th.

For me, this wasn't like the typical books that I read - this was a graphic novel.  Apparently this was a normal book and a movie back in the 1980s, but I wasn't familiar with it.  Then it was made into a graphic novel - published in 2011.

This is the story of a beautiful unicorn who is the last unicorn (hence the title).  This unicorn leaves her unicorn forest in search of the other unicorns.

The unicorn runs into some trouble along the way, meets a young magician, comes into the company of a young girl, and begins a quest to find the giant red bull in a faraway castle.

So - I've never really been interested in graphic novels or comic books, or other literature in this genre.  I find them difficult to read - I don't know which bubble to read first and in what order.  I find the illustrations to be beautiful but also distracting.  I never really know where to look.  Do you read the bubbles first or look at the illustrations?  How can you take a whole book and condense it down into a graphic novel with maybe 1/4 of the words?  How much is lost in translation?

I found this book difficult to follow and difficult to get invested in.  Generally when I start a book I feel the need to finish it.  There are maybe only 3-5 books that I started and didn't finish.  Because The Husband was so excited about this one, I felt I needed to finish it and I also wanted to see if I would like it.  It was interesting and the illustrations were beautiful, but I don't think I'll be venturing back into the graphic genre again anytime soon.