Sarah Neufeld
	Illustrations: D. Meister
	ISBN: 978-0-9801419-0-0
	320 / Black & White / 5 x 7.5 in.
	Price: $15
	4-page prologue!

About | Reviews | Author Bio

About

Natalie is the disappointingly normal daughter of Jayden Irving, a universally reviled woman with the poer to turn invisible at will. When Natalie discovers she had inherited more than just her mother’s metallic blue eyes, she decides it’s about time she traveled beyond the boundries of her suffocating life. Desperate to escape Jadyen’s indifference and disdain, Natalie soon finds herself pulled into a web of blackmail, false identities, and lies that threaten to turn mother against daughter.

With strong visuals and comics elements, Visibility is a coming-of-age story for a young adult readership.

Reviews

Voice of Youth Advocates

August, 2008

Natalie Irving is the teenage daughter of the world’s only invisible woman. Jadyn Irving is largely invisible from Natalie’s life as well, and because her mother has refused to work with the authorities for the public good, Natalie must also deal with living in the shadow of someone who is widely disliked as well as famous. Her one constant is body-gaurd Peter, but even he has a mysterious past he keeps secret from her. With no one to really trust, Natalie must decide whether to keep her own secrets when she suddenly manifests invisibility powers herself. Unfortunately someone else has noticed.

In this confident first novel, Neufeld takes a very down-to-earth view of what it might be like if people really had powers. The story is refreshingly free from even a whiff of super villains, focusing instead on the more mundane evils of petty classmates, cold parents, and merciless crime lords. Echoing the powers motif–and Peter’s desire to become a comic book artist–several pages of paneled artwork by Meister are scattered throughout the book. Although an interesting device and a cute nod to the book’s content, these pages do not actually add much to the story, simply representing graphically scenes that have already been described. Natalie narrates the tale but is mostly a reactive character, and beyond her relationships, readers do not learn much about her. As a coming-of-age story, the book is solid and fun, enlivened by the extra ingredients of superpowers, but it does not quite push beyond interesting to exciting.

~ Lisa Martincik

This review appears in the August 2008 issue of Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA). It is reprinted with permission of Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA).

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Flamingnet

July 17, 2008

Visibility by Sarah Neufeld tells the story of a girl struggling to understand herself and the people around her. One thing separates her from sharing this situation with her peers: on her eighteenth birthday, Natalie discovers that that she has a superpower of sorts—she can turn invisible. With her bodyguard sitting in for her absent father and her mother, Jadyn, acting invisible in more ways than one, it’s no surprise that Natalie is unsure of how to deal with her new ability. After spending years in the infamous Jadyn Irving’s shadow, Natalie strives to keep her talent hidden, but this proves to be more of a challenge than she expects. Caught up in a world of blackmail, deception, and absent family, Natalie must learn how to use this ability to discover truth, without endangering her own life and the lives of those around her.

As an illustrated novel, Sarah Neufeld’s Visibility falls in between graphic novels and common novels. Less intimidating than a graphic novel, it has the potential to introduce otherwise cautious readers to the genre. As someone who is always trying to convince her friends to try out a graphic novel, I am thankful to find a book I know they won’t regret reading. Furthermore, Meister’s illustrations are extraordinary, adding to the vividness of the plot without distracting from the text. Neufeld skillfully merges the power of invisibility into her work of fiction so that Visibility remains accessible to readers of all genres, not just fantasy. Told from Natalie’s perspective, the reader feels her panic at being caught by her bodyguard after sneaking out and even experiences invisibility with her. While Visibility won’t take long to read thanks to the fast-paced plot and frequent illustrations, it will leave the reader with a first-rate impression of illustrated novels that will linger for days to come.

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Seeing Indigo: New Release Spotlight

July 1, 2008

Comics and graphic novels are the fastest growing genre in literature. As a dedicated book reader, I felt that my literary experience was lacking because I’d never read a graphic novel. I’d picked them up in bookstores, but was always daunted by the intertwining of words and pictures. I may have readMoby-Dick, but I was intimidated by novels written for ten-year-olds.

Then I discovered a genre that is, for me, a stepping stone into the world of graphic novels—the illustrated novel.

Visibility, written by Sarah Neufeld and illustrated by D. Meister, is an illustrated novel for ages thirteen and up. And it was just the thing to ease me into the genre. An illustrated novel has illustrations suggestive of comic book illustrations, but the words and pictures are kept separate, making it easier for a newbie like me to read.

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Teens Read Too

May 7, 2008

Exploring the darker side of having superpowers has been done before, but perhaps not in this particular way — through the eyes of the 17-year-old daughter of the worlds only invisible woman.

Natalie knows she’s a disappointment. She knows that people, including her own father, hoped she’d be special like her mother. But she turned out to be “normal” — and that’s all anyone needs to know about her. Natalie is shy and socially awkward; two more reasons that it’s pointless for anyone to get near her. So, no one does.

Since her parents split years ago and her mother, Jadyn, is busy living her lifestyle of the rich and famous. Natalie is left to her own devices. That might sound exciting, but when you’ve had a bodyguard watching your every move since you were six, and you’re never quite sure when your mother might appear out of thin air, options are limited.

Things turn a bit more interesting, though, when Natalie discovers she just might have a few invisibility tricks up her sleeve after all.

Geared toward 13-17 year old girls and based on graphic novels, the writing in this book is tight and action-packed. The whole time I read the book, it was as though I was viewing it on-screen. Even Natalie’s internal thoughts buzzed with excitement as she wove her way through a tangled web of fear and uncertainty.

My favorite character is her bodyguard, Peter. I like the way he gives her a glimpse of a normal life and normal interests, while still encouraging her to face her own reality and make choices about it. He’s the one stable influence in her world, so he becomes doubly important when that world turns upside down.

This is a quick, exciting read, and it will entertain anyone with interests in action, reality-based fantasy, mystery, comic books, or just plain good reading. Plus, it just screams, “Sequel!”

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Superfast Reader

February 26, 2008

Visibility was written when Sarah Neufeld was only 19, and it’s an impressive debut. She’s crafted a fresh take on the superhero origin story, thanks to her nuanced portrayal of Natalie, who is both brave and insecure and therefore utterly relatable.

Natalie’s mother Jadyn is the only known invisible person in the world, and Natalie’s always assumed that she didn’t inherit her mother’s talent. But when she comes across some classmates bent on playing a practical joke, suddenly Natalie “snaps” into invisibility, and her life is irrevocably changed. She’s never had an easy relationship with her mother, and she’s afraid of what Jadyn will do if she learns what Natalie can do. Additionally, the police discover what she can do and recruit her to fight drug traffickers, so she’s sneaking out under the nose of her watchful, kind bodyguard.

Needless to say, quite a bit of action ensues, but the accompanying adolescent angst is far from typical. Natalie isn’t a whiner, and she’s not too cool for school. She’s a girl in over her head and realizing that it’s time for her to leave childhood behind. It’s great stuff.

The book is illustrated by D. Meister and do a good job of bringing Natalie’s invisible world to life. One of the great imaginative components of the book is the way the world changes when Natalie snaps, but the book’s one weakness is that Neufeld’s prose isn’t always up to the task of bringing it to life. I didn’t mind, however, since this book is meant to have a graphic element. I’m not a big reader of graphic novels but I quite enjoyed this one.

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Author and Illustrator Bios

Sarah Neufeld is a home-schooled world traveler who is heavily influenced by her time living in Japan. Her admiration for the artistic storytelling in graphic novels, combined with a love of manga, served as inspiration when writing Visibility. Sarah currently works as a freelance Japanese translater. When she isn’t busy writing, she can be found learning more languages, hiking in the urban forests around Porland, Oregon, and enjoying manga over a cup of tea.

André “D.” Meister lives in one of the biggest cities in the world, Sao Paulo, Brazil. When he’s not drawing, he dedicates his free time to singing in a band and studying arts. D. met Sarah Neufeld in Japan during a student exchange program. They have been good friends ever since.