Read this one in Dutch, but will be writing my review in English.

I read this story a few years prior, it was a shocking and amazing story, and so of course I had to try out the graphic novel of it when I spotted it at the library on Saturday. I was hoping it would be a great adaptation of a haunting story, and in a way it was. But I think that due to me knowing what is going to happen the thrill wasn’t there. The excitement, the what will happen? from the first time has disappeared.

Welcome to a little town somewhere in America. Every year they hold a ritual. It involves a box, pieces of paper. But what will happen to the ones who draw the “lucky” ticket? The story is still haunting, but again, I think if I had read this one without knowledge of the original story I would probably have loved it more. I still have to give credit and say that the illustrator did a great job of not spoiling anything, it really follows the story (and in that one you also only got hints).

The ending was still shocking. Yes, I knew what was coming, yes I could prepare for it, but to see it again. Dang.

It is still a creepy idea that you can never run away from the Lottery. Though, we do see conversations that some towns are abolishing it. I do wonder who started this tradition and why it is still done.

This book relies heavily on the illustrations. There are a few accompanying texts, but generally the only text is conversations. Yes, this is a graphic novel, but I have read enough of them to know that some will mix text with imagery. Sometimes there is even a large amount of text. And of course, the original story only was about 30 pages, so there isn’t much text to begin with, but still I love that he decided to go for the illustrations to tell the story his grandmother wrote so many years ago.

However I did have a problem with the illustrations. They were great, the style fitted perfectly with the story, and the illustrator definitely captured the feeling of the story with them. However, the illustrations seemed blurry. After reading the full book, I got a bit of an headache. I am not sure if it was meant to blurry, or that something went wrong with printing. I would love to see the originals, see if they are also blurry.

So I did enjoy this book, if enjoy is the right word for such a haunting story. I would recommend this graphic novel, but also the short story.