THE HARROWING

A girl’s ability to predict crime embroils her in a troubling experiment.

Rowan, who works on her family’s worm farm, is still mourning the violent murder of her mother 12 years ago. She has long since dropped the habit—instilled in her by her supposedly germophobic mom—of wearing red gloves out in the world. But now Rowan’s in her senior year of high school, and she discovers that the briefest contact of her hand against another person results in her having terrifying visions of death. Rowan is quickly whisked off to Rosewood, a boarding school, where she learns that she’s a Harrow, or a person gifted with the ability to see crimes before they occur. In this graphic novel that blends Shallow Graves by Kali Wallace with “Minority Report,” Rowan slowly learns that protection and rehabilitation are not Rosewood’s only goals, and that her mother’s fate might be connected to secrets she uncovered. The story is paced on the slower side, but the action builds up as Rowan realizes that the boy she has a crush on might soon be implicated in her secretive new world, and that her own family might be hiding something in plain sight. The muted grayscale art makes the touches of red pop, but some jerky transitions between action scenes can make it hard to follow the plot. Rowan reads white; Lucas has brown skin and curly black hair.

An original, genre-blending graphic novel for patient readers.