This one was a little bit of a let down after how much I enjoyed Vol. 6, to be honest. Although, it’s probably a good idea to take this review with a little grain of salt, because I didn’t have the best experience with the actual physical reading of it. After my library’s copy was lost (and then the library closed), and going to a bookstore and mooching off one of their copies stopped being an option, I ended up buying a copy from the Apple store because I had a gift card. This means I had to read it on Apple Books, which isn’t a bad platform if you’re just reading a regular old e-book, but the formatting is very hard to deal with for comics. It might not have been that bad if I had an iPad, but I don’t, and even though I was reading on an iPhone 8 plus, I still had trouble reading the words and seeing the art. It was irritating the whole way through to have to zoom in and move the pages manually with my fingers, as opposed to the way comics are formatted on Kindle, where each panel is zoomable, and when you flick your finger to go to the next page, it goes to the next panel. I’ve read Sandman on my iPhone’s Kindle app before and it was totally fine (though obviously I still prefer the physical copy). I’m positive this affected how much I enjoyed the comic.
This one features Dream teaming up with his sister Delirium, who is determined to find their brother, who has been deliberately missing from their lives for the past 300 years. A little of Delirium goes a long way, so that was problem number one. Problem number two was that it was depressing watching bad things happen to everyone who they meet on their quest because SPOILERS Destruction had it set up that this would happen so that he wouldn’t be found END SPOILERS. The ending of the story was really poignant, though, and everyone else seems to have loved this one, so that’s why I’m saying I really think the way I read this ruined it for me. I need to read it again in hard copy.
I did like the idea of old gods remaining in the world, living out normal, faded lives. It was sad, but interesting. I also liked all the flashbacks into Dream’s former life, and I liked Despair for the first time in this one. We also learn that the Endless may be endless, but that doesn’t mean they remain the same throughout their lives, which is what Destruction’s actions are all about.
Maybe someone can help me out, because I’ve been reading these books months apart, who was the woman who left Morpheus at the beginning of this? I couldn’t remember any woman he’d had a recent relationship with.
[3.5 stars]