A snarky romp—just don’t think too hard about the holey plot.
A scrappy teenager dedicates her summer to finding an elusive sasquatch.
The tiny town of Southborough, California, became a hot spot for paranormal-seeking tourists after Gregory Samuel O’Connor’s American Idol audition tape was video-bombed by a sasquatch. Eighteen years later, the tourism boom has nose-dived due to dwindling sightings of the sasquatch and internet-driven skepticism. Seventeen-year-old Louie O’Connor, daughter of the man who spotted the local cryptid, worries her dads will lose their restaurant. Like other Southborough businesses, Squatch Burger is threatened by a rich tech entrepreneur who wants to buy up the town for selfish purposes. Louie and her best friend, Felix, decide to turn things around by catching the sasquatch and returning Southborough to the map. But when a paranormal investigator famous for debunking cryptid stories shows up, everything changes. Can Louie find her passion and save the day? Reminiscent of a campy ’80s film, the eye-catching, full-color artwork highlights kooky schemes and extremely expressive characters. While the visual design is stunning, weak character development muddles a thematically overburdened story. The impetus for many plot points and humorous gags turns out to be Louie’s air of entitlement and general brattiness. An unbelievable change of heart leads to a tidy conclusion. Louie and her dads read as White; Felix is cued as Latinx, and residents of the town are ethnically diverse.
A snarky romp—just don’t think too hard about the holey plot. (Graphic fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: March 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-62010-849-9
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Oni Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Hinds adds another magnificent adaptation to his oeuvre (King Lear, 2009, etc.) with this stunning graphic retelling of Homer’s epic. Following Odysseus’s journey to return home to his beloved wife, Penelope, readers are transported into a world that easily combines the realistic and the fantastic. Gods mingle with the mortals, and not heeding their warnings could lead to quick danger; being mere men, Odysseus and his crew often make hasty errors in judgment and must face challenging consequences. Lush watercolors move with fluid lines throughout this reimagining. The artist’s use of color is especially striking: His battle scenes are ample, bloodily scarlet affairs, and Polyphemus’s cave is a stifling orange; he depicts the underworld as a colorless, mirthless void, domestic spaces in warm tans, the all-encircling sea in a light Mediterranean blue and some of the far-away islands in almost tangibly growing greens. Don’t confuse this hefty, respectful adaptation with some of the other recent ones; this one holds nothing back and is proudly, grittily realistic rather than cheerfully cartoonish. Big, bold, beautiful. (notes) (Graphic classic. YA)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7636-4266-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010
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