Review copy provided by Sterling Publishing.
This is very much what it says on the label. It is an adult coloring book centered around the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Each set of facing pages has one page of pure image and one page of Poe quote surrounded with fancy scrolls, curlicues, etc. to color. The one I colored was from “The Tell-Tale Heart,” but there’s a lot of best-known Poe here: “The Raven,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” etc.
The images are in some spots gruesome, but not gory. I feel perfectly comfortable sharing this coloring book with my goddaughter, who is nine. It may spark questions about what the quotes mean, what the stories are about, but I’m comfortable with that.
My main complaint in the coloring experience is twofold: one, some of the images seem to me to be more focused on producing little fiddly bits to color than on illustrating Poe; and two, that some of the images (as shown) look like they will be full of little fiddly bits to color, but they’re actually quite a lot of background with unconnected lines on it. I could have colored the background of this a solid color, but that didn’t sound like much fun, so I didn’t. Not all of them are like that, but some are.
Overall, though, if you’re a fan of adult coloring books, and you’re also Gothy in general or into Poe in specific, this will probably be an entertaining buy for you. If you’re not really a color-er, it’s really geared toward that, so people who are only Poe fans might want to give it a pass. But the world is full of Goths with crafty tendencies, so I expect this will have a pretty strong audience.
Please consider using our link to buy Edgar Allen Poe: An Adult Coloring Book from Amazon.