In a secluded castle, at the beginning of a winter that is predicted to last for three years, Lars is battling illness, boredom and the pressures of family life. Locked inside for the duration, he passes the time playing with his siblings and his giant cat, Nemo, while tensions within the family begin to simmer…
In her first graphic novel, Tillie Walden tells the tragic and moving story of Lars and his twin sister, Maja. Full of subtle and tender character moments and set in an exquisitely rendered castle, it’s a hauntingly beautiful work that will no doubt be considered as one of the great debuts of 2015.
Tillie Walden is an American cartoonist and illustrator. Born in 1996 in San Diego, California, Walden graduated from the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont, where she is currently a professor. Walden started publishing short comics when she was just a teenager. Her first long-form graphic novel The End of Summer was published by the British publisher Avery Hill in 2015. Her second book I Love This Part came out only a few months later, winning the 2016 Ignatz Award for promising new talent. Later Walden received the 2018 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work for her memoir Spinning (2017). Among her other works are A City Inside (2016), On a Sunbeam (2018), Are You Listening? (2020), Alone in Space (2021) and the series Clementine.
another annual reread and DAMN i still love this book. it's so layered and the thing i love most about it is i don't quite understand it, but that's what keeps me coming back for more. it's so subtle but the architecture and the metaphor of a 3-year winter and the dreariness of the years dragging on while these kids are growing up and the broken family dynamics......... man i just can't get enough of this. one of these days i'm gonna just have to read it 3 times back to back instead of the once.
reread 2023
this book feels like a deep cut since it's tillie's debut and it's sooo underrated. honestly it gives me the same thrill of watching the polar express around the holidays because on the surface it's a wintery story but there's so many little details that are sinister and confusing. every read i think i'll notice something new. this time around it was easier to distinguish which characters are which, but the panels so do much back and forth movement with the framing of past vs present that i think it'll take me a few more reads to fully catch the essence of this story.
still, i love rereading it in winter even though it is dreary.
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This book has the most beautiful storyline and drawings. The best part was the architecture and the mood of this book, which were both so stunning it's hard to translate in a review. Gorgeous yet melancholy is the closest I can describe it. The magical elements of this were sweet, like a horse-sized cat the main character rides around on, and the family ties were also interesting. My only complaint, which is more of a suggestion than a complaint, is I wish the drawings were colored in to help distinguish between characters more easily. There's a large family in this book, and around the last half of the book it was hard to understand what occurred because it was hard to see who was who. But I literally cannot wait to reread this on a dreary snowy day and re-experience it. It would be such a neat animated movie, too. Basically I loved it but wish the middle and end were more comprehensible, but I'm sure on future rereads I'll understand better.
Great tone setting and world building. Loved the illustrations of the castle. Plot is a bit murky as, most folks noted in their reviews, characters are hard to tell apart. It gets 5 stars anyway.
If anyone is confused about the plot, here's a short synopsis from what I can gather:
You almost can't talk about this book without saying that Walden has now published three books, and she is now 20. This is maybe her first big one, written when she was 18, and it has the complexity and depth of someone much older about it. It's the story of ill Lars and his twin sister Maja, who live in a secluded castle, which they close because winter is beginning and it is going to last three years. Lars also has a giant cat, Nemo, (which is a name that calls for early surrealist comics legend Little Nemo by Winsor McKay, which Walden was introduced to as a child).
So it is a fantasy set in a castle that is drawn with some architectural detail. It looks like an amazing place to live. The story is told in a kind of oblique fashion, fragmented, in images more than any obvious narrative structure. The compositional structure, the panel arrangement, all owes something to McKay and what looks like Miyazaki. Originally published in 2015, it is rereleased this year with an added prequel. It's in part about sorrow, about growing up. I want to read everything Walden is doing and will do.
«El final del verano» es un nostálgico cómic de fantasía en el que un joven príncipe moribundo se encierra junto a su familia en palacio para resguardarse de los cuatro años de invierno que se avecinan. Es la primera obra larga de la jovencísima y talentosísima Tillie Walden y, aunque creo que después mejoraría en la construcción de personajes y la narración de historias, muestra ya aquí de forma nítida muchas de las que serán las claves de su obra: la introspección, la arquitectura, los espacios abiertos, el final de la adolescencia… Me ha parecido una obra muy original y, sobre todo en el sentido plástico, muy sorprendente, especialmente, recordemos, tratándose de una obra de ficción hecha en su totalidad por una chica de 19 años.
representation: chronic illness, character with OCD traits.
[trigger warnings are listed at the bottom of this review and may contain spoilers]
★★
I am honestly SO CONFUSED. WTF DID I JUST READ? None of it made any sense??????? The characters were impossible to tell apart and the storyline was completely nonsensical. It gets two stars for the art style but unfortunately i didn't like anything else about it and i'm sad :(
trigger warnings: illness, forced confinement, blood, amputation, death of a pet (HUGE warning for this... it was very upsetting), death of family members.
I gave this four stars for the atmosphere, setting and art alone! As other reviewers have said there are similarities to the world we know, such as royalty but there is also a three year long winter and a giant cat that carries it's owner around and cuddles with him in bed each night (my dream??) The characters live in this giant castle that is sealed up for said long winter. The castle is just to die for. The details she spends on the architecture are amazing. I wanted to go wander in the never-ending library! I want to stare out the 100 ft tall windows & watch the snow fall! I want to read and take a long in the plush window seat/beds they had and frolic in the giant obstacle course/tunnels.
That said, I was not that invested in and generally confused by the plot. It's told in a loose style so I don't think it's supposed to be totally clear but I still would've like to care about it a bit more. Also, her drawing styles honestly makes some characters appear so similar I couldn't always tell who was supposed to be who.
All said, it's a very quick read and worth it for the world building alone and the cozy "snuggle inside in a snowstorm" feeling it gave me. Plus the author was like 18 when she wrote it so I'll give her a pass!
There are students at my middle school who love Tillie Walden's work. Published in 2016 when she was only 20 years, this is her first book. She creates an alternative world set in a castle-like home about twins Maja and Lars, their family, the servants and a giant cat named Nemo. You may need to reread this several times to understand it or check out Warren's review which includes a brief synopsis. Give this one those who read graphic novels for their illustrations instead of the text.
I heard a lot of great things about Tillie Walden's work, so I figured I should really read it sometime. And while I understand the praise for the art and the writing, this graphic novel fell really flat for me. I did like the atmosphere of it, but there was just so much missing. There wasn't really any background or structure, so it was very hard to figure out the setting and the storyline. On top of that, there wasn't really any character depth and it was very hard to distinguish between the side characters. Ultimately, I feel like it had a lot of potential, but it was all very rushed and difficult to follow.
Reread in preparation for The Comics Alternative's discussion of the 2016 Ignatz Awards.
New book from a first-time author. It's an intriguing story, but there are parts that are a little ambiguous. Intentional? There is a dreamlike quality to the narrative, at times, so that would make sense. It's set in a world that is obviously not our own, but it seems as such. There are a number of questions I have about this book, even after multiple readings.
I'll be interviewing Tillie for The Comics Alternative.
I really, really enjoyed this and am still floored at the body of work Walden has created at such a young. The only thing that kept this from being a 4-star for me was the characters all looked too similar - it was hard to distinguish who was who, which detracted from some of the narrative's emotional pulls.
I would still highly recommend this though. The world-building is super unique and Walden is really deft at using text and art together to tell a story.
I can't believe that a person less then a year out of high school can create such a wonderful book. The art work sets the mood beautifully, a stark world with a 3 year winter should be black and white. I need to get more books by this author/artist.
Dull, depressing, pointless homage to Little Nemo in Slumberland, one of my least favorite comic strips ever.
Yes, I'd prefer to read a Beetle Bailey, Snuffy Smith, Family Circus, or ~gagging~ B.C. book before I'd ever touch another one with Little Nemo. He can take all his dream sequences and carry them straight to hell on his bloody flying bed.
I’m extremely picky when it comes to graphic novels – in fact, there are a limited number I can claim to have loved – and The End of Summer was one that did not work for me. I’m sure many graphic novels fans will enjoy this one, but I clearly wasn’t the intended reader for this one.
For me, the story was a confusing one. There was a lack of clarity at many points and many details were never explained in the way I had hoped. It was a quick read, one that I powered through in no time, but there was nothing in it that made me want to take my time. In fact, there was nothing in it that made me want to read it again in the hope things would make sense.
As I said, I’m not the biggest fan of graphic novels, which means it could just be me.
Tillie Walden, a mere 20 years old, seems destined for big stardom in the alt/indie comics scene, which is no surprise, as she is clearly super-talented. Her visuals for this somber fantasy tale, particularly of the architecture, are grand and sumptuous, but the story itself just kind of eluded me (I'm admittedly not the biggest fantasy buff), and TBH I had a hard time telling the characters apart. Another example of excellent work that's simply Not For Me. 3 out of 5 stars.
I've quickly become a fan of Tillie Walden's work over the last few weeks. I really enjoyed this macabre tale. I lost track of who was who a couple of times and it wasn't always clear who was speaking. The art is stunning, and I really enjoyed the structure of the plot, and the way some pages have 15 or so mini panels. It's a slow story, that does a fantastic job of creating intimacy. My heart broke several times.
The End of Summer is Tillie Walden's debut, and it already shows the elements that will permeate all of her future graphic novels: the feeling of melancholy and loneliness, family bonds, mental health, emotional struggles and a deep sense of self.
The art style is absolutely stunning as always, and there are some elements I loved, such as the protagonist's giant cat (I mean, who DOESN'T want a cute giant cat to cuddle?) and Lars' relationship with his twin sister, Maja.
That said, I think the weakest point of The End of Summer is the character design. We follow a huge family and the people who live with them, and it was hard to tell apart each character from the other since many of them had similar features, such as same hairstyle and color, same face features, etc.
Because of that, the second half of the story got confusing, specially since I didn't understand what was happening with which character, who killed who, who had a fight with who, etc.
That said, even though this novel could've been improved in some points, I was still able to enjoy it.
First time through, this was beautiful and haunting and dreamlike, but I wasn't really able to distinguish the characters from each other and didn't follow the plot. Second time through revealed a sad, dark story about a wealthy family sequestered from the world that eventually folds in on itself. Considering that Walden was only 19 when she wrote it, it's beyond incredible to astounding. What kinds of stories will we see coming from her when she's had even more life experience? I hadn't heard of her before I encountered I Love This Part when I was on the Eisner committee and it was a gorgeous and imaginative examination of a relationship, which ended up being nominated! I picked up The End of Summer because I was so enthralled with I Love This Part and it took me several months to get around to reading it. You've got to work to understand it, but it's brilliant.
No lo había subido para que fuese más sorpresa para Cezu jejeje qué mala soy
No me parece el mejor comic de Tillie Walden, creo que sentí que los personajes se confundían mucho entre ellos (diseños muy parecidos) pero tampoco me quejo porque fue como su TFG o algo así y sigue siendo muy guay! Es muy de gemelos!
2.75 stars? This was Walden's first book, so I cut her a break, but this was a little bit too on the vague side for me. A royal family, their servants, and their giant pet cat named Nemo lock themselves in their castle for a 3-year-long winter. The main character Lars is dying of heart disease, which he chooses to tell none of his siblings about. The rest of the story follows the family's disintegration over the long winter. Full of interesting concepts but I wish there'd been more world-building, and from an artistic standpoint I had a helluva time telling the characters apart, making a lot of the happenings confusing and hard to follow. Overall this was a little more vague and left "up to interpretation" than I prefer but I'm glad I gave it a chance.
At the onset of a winter due to last three years, a family (and their giant cat) lock themselves into their vast palace to wait for spring. And sumptuous as their home is, cabin fever inevitably sets in... A haunting fable, far better suited to the season than the title might suggest, and particularly impressive given it was Tillie Walden's debut. I'll definitely read more from her.
There were a lot of similarly looking characters in this book, which caused some of the actions of those characters to lose some meaning to me as I puzzled out who they were. I feel like I need to talk this book over with someone in detail to really have a grasp on everything that happened. It felt like a Shakespearean tragedy--there's a lot here and it would take a few readings to grasp it all.