Sofia: Red Chair Beach

This book is an insult to the way the internet works.
(this is a cheesy title, but not as cheesy as the book itself)

Pro: The art is good

Cons:
- There is a clear lack of diverse representation. Everyone is thin and white. It feels like a book from the early 2000s.
- Who is the lead and the savior? a white man.
- The portrayal of sisters feels clichéd and outdated.
- The publisher's summary of the book doesn't even match the plot of book (never seen that before). Sofia is not propelled into the digital world, we just follow her avatar made out of all her digital data, which is vastly different.
- Speaking of plot, face-palm, it makes no sense that suddenly there is no more space on the internet. Connect another computer to the internet, and voilà, you have more space on the internet. And it makes even less sense that people would be limited to a life-time 30GB of data (we use this amount so quickly).
- Even if I try to imagine a sci-fi scenario where the internet would be limited and the data restricted, the author doesn't grasp what the internet is and the plot falls flat.
- And that's not all! The book is short, but the narration is very confusing. I would have expected it to be a standalone with an actual resolution. Instead, the book ends on a cliffhanger with most of the plot and the characters' background unexplained. That was odd.
- And then there are the masks haters, the malevolent shop owner, and the rescuers with ‘68 vibes, all coming across as gauche, cheesy, and heavy-handed. The overarching message is that “Spending time on the internet is bad, being in nature is good”. I would have appreciated some nuance here.

Overall, I do not recommend this book, particularly if you only read the first volume. It lacks structure and coherence, and the theme failed to capture my interest.

Thank you Netgalley and Europe Comics for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.