I realized I had read Afar by Leila del Duca, Kit Seaton and Taneka Stotts a few pages in. However, when I went to put the book in my counting site, I lost my notes/rating/etc. From before for it. Therefore, I am not sure what my original thoughts were. I do remember enjoying it, but obviously not enough to remember I had read it before. Then, I only remembered a few parts making it more of a first time read and anything that was familiar was because I had read several similar books to it.
With this second read, even though I enjoyed it, I did not like it as much as I seem to remember liking it. I like the sibling story and their adventures, but due to the choppy nature of things (jumping to various points of view) and events happening with little to no warning (and not just jumping into the dreams, which make sense why it is a bit choppy) it lost me. Boetema and her brother are nice enough people, they have several challenges when finding their parents, but nothing made me care about them. The story makes things feel as if it is a second book in a series or an abridged version of something longer. Maybe even a novel adapted as a graphic novel or a game I am not familiar with.. It is an interesting science fiction graphic novel and it feels as if there are sequels, but I am not sure I would go looking for them.
And even the illustrations did not grab me. The art is crowded, without giving a lot of details. When things are more fleshed out, we do have some lovely medieval looking homes/fortresses and market places. The area looks a mixture of Arabic and African, with some European elements. Then there is a steampunk/cyberpunk look with the machines and a few people have mechanical parts. The cast are mostly of color people (based in an African, Arabic and Asian background) and therefore, the cast is diverse. The colors are dark, making it hard to sometimes make out who is who. Overall, I did not dislike them, or the story as a whole, but the individual parts were not always liked.