Review of 'Kill or Be Killed Volume 4' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
In short, I enjoyed the series, but it had some issues imo. Before I get into the thick of it, I"ll just go ahead and preface this with saying, these are just my opinions, I'm by no means a professional critic, hell I don't even know if I'd be considered an amateur critic. On with the review.
I loved Dylans mental side of things, and being told mostly from his perspective it was messy, and unpredictable with sometimes he'd start telling the story at the middle then he'd jump back to the beginning as he realized he needed to tell it in more context. I loved that.
I felt it was a bit obvious early on he wasn't actually seeing the demon, and it was just a product of his depression and mental instability. But I love how the story weaved the demon in every time Dylan started to stray …
In short, I enjoyed the series, but it had some issues imo. Before I get into the thick of it, I"ll just go ahead and preface this with saying, these are just my opinions, I'm by no means a professional critic, hell I don't even know if I'd be considered an amateur critic. On with the review.
I loved Dylans mental side of things, and being told mostly from his perspective it was messy, and unpredictable with sometimes he'd start telling the story at the middle then he'd jump back to the beginning as he realized he needed to tell it in more context. I loved that.
I felt it was a bit obvious early on he wasn't actually seeing the demon, and it was just a product of his depression and mental instability. But I love how the story weaved the demon in every time Dylan started to stray from murder, and when he fully embraced it the Demon wasn't there at all.
Dylan's fathers backstory was heartbreaking and gave me shivers. But to be honest these days being a father myself seeing that stuff I get effected by children stuff like that.
Now on to the stuff I absolutely HATED. The political commentary was a bit too much for me. The only saving grace for it though was that it fit the setting very well, but my god especially Vol 2 it got a little too on the nose for me. If you like social commentary you MIGHT like this, only reason I say might was because it gets really shoved in your face and imo doesn't have subtlety at all. And as much as I enjoyed the series, I'll be honest if this is how all of this authors works are I'll probably be avoiding them in the future. I read books and comics to enjoy there world, not be reminded of the real world. Also not on the story side but I found the art to be extremely weak, especially after coming from having read Saga Vol 1, the art was barely passable.
Spoiler for the ending I'd be lying if I said the ending wasn't somewhat predictable, I knew he'd die and the detective would catch him. The only thing I didn't predict was Kira picking up the mental issues as she would deal with the fallout from someone she loved going through that. I go back and forth in my mind whether or not I liked the actual execution, as of now I like it, that might change in a day lol
That's just my thoughts, like I said feel free to disagree, let me know what you guys think.
You can find the exact same review on /r/imagecomics subreddit. Please listen to our podcast KeepersOfTheBook where we go over fantasy/scifi books few chapters at a time
