An affecting tale of love, loss, and dreams.
A girl faces grief and finds romance in her dreams.
Four years ago, Alicia Campos’ father passed away. Her best friend, Marisa Garza, was there for her, and Alicia believes Marisa is the only one who really understands her. The light-skinned teens, who are implied Latine, are different in many ways. Marisa is always thinking about boys and sex, while Alicia is preoccupied by a recurring dream—in it, there’s a house in the distance that draws her, but she can’t get any closer to it. She reads a book on lucid dreaming and slowly learns to control her dreams. Over the summer, while Marisa is away working as a camp counselor, Alicia bonds with Quintin, Marisa’s brown-skinned basketball player boyfriend, who works at a video rental store. When Alicia and Quintin develop a romantic connection in their dreams (which are portrayed in full color), the waking world (which is depicted in a muted gray and pale yellow palette) becomes more complicated. This graphic novel gently explores grief after losing a loved one. Glock thoughtfully and realistically portrays Alicia’s unresolved feelings of shame and guilt and delicately handles her changing relationships. While there’s a strong focus on internal character development, the art is less visually engaging; many of the facial expressions are similar and repetitive, but sincere emotions still come through and drive the story. The ending feels somewhat too easy but is still satisfying.
An affecting tale of love, loss, and dreams. (Graphic fiction. 13-18)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9780316459037
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown Ink
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A fresh, generous, wide-ranging compendium of frights.
Spooky stories covering multiple subgenres, plus some added attractions.
Few horrific tropes or creepy conventions are overlooked in Duplessie’s debut. The stories are arranged into six sections: “Short Frights for Dark Nights,” “Anatomical Anomalies,” “Five Minutes in the Future,” “Be Careful Who You Trust,” “The Dark Web,” and “The Unearthly, the Ghoulish, and the Downright Monstrous.” Some of the best entries are grounded in familiar setups, but Duplessie is careful to avoid repetition. The stories’ relatively short lengths and the crisp, direct writing style make this volume inviting for even reluctant readers, but it doesn’t shy away from the truly terrifying and grotesque. That said, the grisliest events are often described with poetic elegance rather than gratuitous violence: “His face collapsed like an empty paper bag.” The stories frequently conclude with the suggestion of frights to come rather than graphic depictions. One ends with an overly curious girl getting sealed up in a brick wall. Another foreshadows the murderous power of a cellphone. Highlights include the eerie “The Reaping,” in which the prick of a rose’s thorn triggers a spate of bloodlust, and “Chamber of Horrors,” which features a murderous iron maiden. Each story ends with a bonus in the form of a QR code and instructions to “scan the code for a scare”—if readers dare. Short, eerie poems are peppered throughout; there are even a handful of riddles. Most characters read white; names cue some ethnic diversity.
A fresh, generous, wide-ranging compendium of frights. (Horror. 13-18)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9780063266483
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
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