Kibuishi, Kazu - Amulet: The Stonekeeper

[oyceter]

After her father dies in a car accident, Emily, her mom, and her younger brother Navin move to their great-grandfather's house in a quiet neighborhood. The house itself is creaky and needs a lot of work, and while they're cleaning, Emily discovers an amulet. Soon, her mom is kidnapped by a tentacly monster thing, and she and Navin head to the world underneath the house to rescue their mother.

I read this about a month ago, and sadly, I do not remember much of what happens. yeloson already noted how Emily is the one leaping into action and jumping into things, while her little brother is the more cautious one, which is a nice change from assigning the female characters the more practical yet unengaged with plot action bits. While Kibuishi does complicate the role of the amulet and how strangely insistent it is on some things, I felt like I left the world wanting more, be it plot or characterization or themes or anything.

Instead, the series so far feels like a kind of cool but still fairly standard character-discovers-magic-world-is-savior type book. Still, it'll be interesting to see if Kibuishi does anything more with it in the second volume.