Clean Room: Exile

by Gail Simone, Jon Davis-Hunt, Quinton Winter

Genres: Graphic Novels, Horror, Science Fiction
Pages: 144
Rating:

Synopsis:

Journalist Chloe Pierce had no idea that her fiance Philip's decision to pick up a book by enigmatic and compelling self-help guru Astrid Mueller would change her life forever--by ending his! Three months after reading Mueller's book, Philip had blown his brains out all over Chloe's new kitchen and something in that book made him do it.

Now, Chloe will stop at nothing as she attempts to infiltrate Mueller's clandestine organization to find the truth behind Philip's suicide and a "Clean Room" that she's heard whispers of--a place where your deepest fears are exposed and your worst moments revealed.

Volume two of Gail Simone’s Clean Room certainly goes some more places. The horror hasn’t worn off, because it keeps hinting at deeper mysteries, and the rabbit-hole of weird keeps getting deeper. It still feels to me like any real explanation would defuse a lot of the unease that makes the story work — you know the type of thing: “This Big Bad is actually an alien from the planet Blarg, and it actually wants to…”

Simone avoids that and instead gets us deeper involved in what’s going on with tantalising hints and wheels within wheels. It’s still difficult to entirely like the characters, and that still doesn’t matter a ton; somehow you’re along for the ride with Astrid and Killian and Chloe, all the same.

Definitely going to read the third volume, and I hope it stands up to the promise so far.

Rating: 4/5