Serenity Rose is a strange little book.

It bills itself on the inside front cover as "the personal journals of a local witch", and goes on to introduce itself as a comic book Rose has produced as a task set to her by her "court-appointed psychiatrist."  As the only witch in the town of Crestfallen, USA - and one of only a handful on the planet - poor Serenity gets an awful lot of attention.  And she really just wants to be left in peace.

The mock journal format results in a somewhat open-ended, defocused read - it's very, very light on plot, and heavy on Serenity's resigned, sulking observations.  She's a painfully negative, withdrawn and introverted character.  While she's not meant to be a goth - the goths love her, and she finds them just as irritating as everyone else - the general tone of her character strikes me as Very Goth Indeed.

The book works on a gentle blend of understated humour, sympathy for poor Serenity, and the general atmosphere of cute spookiness.  Strictly speaking, not a great deal really happens, but it does strike a distinctive and likeable tone.  Serenity's not really cut out to be a protagonist - she's way too passive and reactive for that.  But rather than trying to shoehorn her into that role, creator Aaron A satisfies himself with giving us a set of views of her world.  And it kind of works.

Some of the gags are a bit too obvious - I could live without the page moaning about Bad Girl comics, which treads very old ground of negligible interest to anyone outside the comics audience.  It's funny, mind you, but it's been done many times before.

Still, the quiet, gentle tone of the book works rather well.  It's probably a bit too goth for a lot of tastes, and it does err towards championing a whole load of traditional adolescent virtues in a character who's supposed to be in her twenties.  It won't be for everyone, but there's an audience out there who'll love it.

Rating: B+

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