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
Lush, angsty, queer horror.
When the monsters they imagine come to life, two boys fight for their lives—and each other.
Andrew Perrault, who’s from Australia, writes beautiful, macabre fairy tales. His roommate at his American boarding school, Wickwood Academy, is talented artist Thomas Rye, who brings his stories to vivid life in paint and charcoal. Andrew’s twin sister, Dove, is all but ignoring him, so he has plenty of time to focus on Thomas’ increasingly odd behavior. Thomas’ parents disappeared just before the new school year started, and Andrew noticed blood on his roommate’s sleeve on their first day back. When he follows Thomas into the forest one night, Andrew discovers him fighting one of the monsters that Thomas has drawn from these stories. The boys soon find themselves coping with vicious bullies by day and fighting monsters by night. At the same time, Andrew struggles to reconcile his feelings for Thomas with his growing awareness of his own asexuality. But when the sinister Antler King breaches Wickwood’s walls, Andrew realizes that he and Thomas may not survive their own creations. This novel, written in rich, extravagant prose, features frank portrayals of disordered eating, self-harm, bullying, and mental illness. Andrew grapples realistically with his sexual identity, and the story has ample genuinely creepy moments with the monsters. Andrew, Thomas, and Dove are white.
Lush, angsty, queer horror. (content warning) (Horror. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9781250895660
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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