An evocative, tender, character-driven coming-of-age story.
Four social outcasts turn their love of anime into fast cash at the price of their identities and boundaries in this ode to the early 2000s.
Brooke Imafidon's, Melissa Cho's, Kelly Nahas', and Maggie Hilcot’s lives change when they purchase a bootleg anime DVD. Initial shock over the feature’s sexual elements turns to fascination and entrepreneurism as they sell burned copies to classmates at their Christian boarding school. Sales success brings money as well as attention and interpersonal drama, complicated by a love triangle among the four girls. The story takes place in Forest Hills, California, a small town with a repressive, toxic culture. Bullies, cliques, and homophobic teachers represent some of the influences pushing the protagonists and others to alienation and quiet yearning. Skillful, detailed art reminiscent of the girls’ beloved genre brings the cast to life through expressive body language as well as paneling that changes in scale and perspective. One-page asides flesh out each protagonist’s backstory as well as those of background characters who have their own rich inner lives. Names and physical appearances—while somewhat obscured by the green, black, and white palette—cue ethnic diversity in the main cast, but, contrasting with the treatment of sexuality and faith, this element is not developed in any depth. This is a witty and absorbing examination of a community’s painful experiences with loneliness, queer romance, and strangely bewitching anime.
An evocative, tender, character-driven coming-of-age story. (Graphic fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6949-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.
In this YA graphic novel, an alienated Métis girl learns about her people’s Canadian history.
Métis teenager Echo Desjardins finds herself living in a home away from her mother, attending a new school, and feeling completely lonely as a result. She daydreams in class and wanders the halls listening to a playlist of her mother’s old CDs. At home, she shuts herself up in her room. But when her history teacher begins to lecture about the Pemmican Wars of early 1800s Saskatchewan, Echo finds herself swept back to that time. She sees the Métis people following the bison with their mobile hunting camp, turning the animals’ meat into pemmican, which they sell to the Northwest Company in order to buy supplies for the winter. Echo meets a young girl named Marie, who introduces Echo to the rhythms of Métis life. She finally understands what her Métis heritage actually means. But the joys are short-lived, as conflicts between the Métis and their rivals in the Hudson Bay Company come to a bloody head. The tragic history of her people will help explain the difficulties of the Métis in Echo’s own time, including those of her mother and the teen herself. Accompanied by dazzling art by Henderson (A Blanket of Butterflies, 2017, etc.) and colorist Yaciuk (Fire Starters, 2016, etc.), this tale is a brilliant bit of time travel. Readers are swept back to 19th-century Saskatchewan as fully as Echo herself. Vermette’s (The Break, 2017, etc.) dialogue is sparse, offering a mostly visual, deeply contemplative juxtaposition of the present and the past. Echo’s eventual encounter with her mother (whose fate has been kept from readers up to that point) offers a powerful moment of connection that is both unexpected and affecting. “Are you…proud to be Métis?” Echo asks her, forcing her mother to admit, sheepishly: “I don’t really know much about it.” With this series opener, the author provides a bit more insight into what that means.
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.Pub Date: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55379-678-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A poignant and romantic coming-of-age tale.
The boy she believed was the fated love of her life dies; now a 17-year-old girl must find a new future—and a new version of herself.
After the death of her boyfriend, Beck, and her military family’s latest move, Amelia Graham tries for a fresh start. On her first day at her new school, she nearly hits fellow senior Paloma with her car but ultimately finds a new friend in her. After months of being depressed and alone, Lia realizes she’s living again. And then there’s the boy. Although she feels an immediate connection, Lia stays away from him, trying to honor her love for Beck. But Isaiah is there when Lia needs support, and she’s increasingly drawn to him. As the past recedes, Lia realizes that who she was with Beck wasn’t all she’ll ever be. Told through Lia’s first-person point of view and moving between past and present, this story covers heartbreak, healing, and learning to live when the person you lived for is gone. Upperman’s writing is engaging, and although the emotions are heavy, an undercurrent of hope snakes through the narrative, growing brighter as Lia comes back to life and begins to see that the future holds multiple possibilities. Central characters present white; Paloma is cued Latine.
A poignant and romantic coming-of-age tale. (A Geographical History of Amelia Graham) (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464217784
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
