HELLO SUNSHINE

A group of teens face demons both literal and figurative to save their friend.

Noah returns from a Christian summer camp to find that Alex, a boy he’s closer to than many people realize, is missing. But not only is Noah’s friend group unconcerned, one of them goes out of his way to be mean, referring to Alex’s family as “crazy” and “clowns.” When he finally receives a text from Alex, Noah reaches out to Alex’s twin, Jamie, and friends Izzy and Skylar. They join Noah in searching for Alex, at the same time uncovering family history and mysteries and untangling how much of the problem is mental illness and how much is actual magic. Cleverly combining a creepy supernatural story with the story of a young person’s first, terrifying psychotic episode, Young carefully avoids using magic as a metaphor for psychosis, nor does psychosis become a source of cheap scares. The story explores themes of family, mental illness, faith, and queerness and features beautiful, warmly colored art. As Alex psychologically decompensates, the color palette becomes darker, and the images escape the confines of the panels. Though the artistic execution is excellent, the pages can feel overwhelmingly busy, and the time jumps, though often signaled by a change in color scheme, can disrupt the flow as readers pause to figure out what’s going on. Most central characters present white, and Izzy and Skylar are Asian.

Beautiful, spooky, and emotional.