Beautiful, spooky, and emotional.
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. (Graphic horror. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780316509572
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown Ink
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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
An affecting supernatural mystery with a pair of brave protagonists.
The disappearance of a child unveils what lies hiding in the woods at the edge of a small town.
There are all sorts of stories about Picnic, Illinois, but it’s not until her toddler cousin, Madison, goes missing from her crib one night that 15-year-old Luce starts to believe them—and especially when she notices a pair of glowing, wolflike eyes through the windows of her house. To everybody’s relief, Madison is returned to her crib, seemingly safe and sound, soon after she vanished, but Luce and the child’s mother notice discomfiting differences in the 2-year-old. And yet, no one else seems to give credence to their concerns. Luce, prompted by a teacher, starts to research Picnic’s history and the many disappearances—and sudden reappearances—of baby girls, going back decades. Meanwhile, deep in the woods, Fanya, who narrates alternating chapters, tends to the baby girl and prepares for the ritual to welcome her as part of her pack when the full moon comes. As Luce’s and Fanya’s stories converge, so do past and present in Lund’s atmospheric novel. The story borrows elements from South Slavic lore about women who turn into animals to tell an affecting tale about small-town secrets, wronged people, and the bravery of two girls bent on getting to the truth in order to save lives. All characters are assumed White.
An affecting supernatural mystery with a pair of brave protagonists. (Paranormal thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-35109-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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