A sweet, engaging, and beautifully executed adventure.
A transgender teen alien discovers superpowers and queer community in this work by actor Maines, who played Dreamer in the TV show Supergirl.
Nia doesn’t fit in in her “Nowhere, USA” community. Even in a rural town where half the residents are aliens, Nia is all too aware that “somehow, I’m the weirdo.” But when Nia, who’s dad is human, discovers that she’s unwittingly inherited the precognitive powers that her sister has been training her whole life for, she decides to run away to the big city of Metropolis. There she meets other trans and queer girls (including a trans alien like herself) and even attends a ballroom competition before her family’s past catches up with her. This is the best kind of story about a trans character: one where the core plot is interesting and compelling whether the main character is trans or not, yet being trans affects the character and their life in realistic ways, and their identity isn’t merely tacked on. This graphic novel manages to satisfy both as a transgender coming-of-age story and an alien-filled superhero origin story. Readers don’t even need to be DC Comics fans to enjoy it. Nia Nal and everyone on her side are likable and easy to root for. The art, awash in vibrant colors, is beautiful and expressive while remaining unfussy and imaginative. Nia reads white; two of her new Metropolis friends have dark brown skin, and the third is purple-skinned.
A sweet, engaging, and beautifully executed adventure. (Graphic fantasy. 13-17)Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781779510457
Page Count: 208
Publisher: DC
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Bound to be popular.
A suddenly trendy trope—conflict and romance between members of conquering and enslaved races—enlivened by fantasy elements loosely drawn from Arabic tradition (another trend!).
In an original, well-constructed fantasy world (barring some lazy naming), the Scholars have lived under Martial rule for 500 years, downtrodden and in many cases enslaved. Scholar Laia has spent a lifetime hiding her connection to the Resistance—her parents were its leaders—but when her grandparents are killed and her brother’s captured by Masks, the eerie, silver-faced elite soldiers of the Martial Empire, Laia must go undercover as a slave to the terrifying Commandant of Blackcliff Military Academy, where Martials are trained for battle. Meanwhile, Elias, the Commandant’s not-at-all-beloved son, wants to run away from Blackcliff, until he is named an Aspirant for the throne by the mysterious red-eyed Augurs. Predictably, action, intrigue, bloodshed and some pounding pulses follow; there’s betrayal and a potential love triangle or two as well. Sometimes-lackluster prose and a slight overreliance on certain kinds of sexual violence as a threat only slightly diminish the appeal created by familiar (but not predictable) characters and a truly engaging if not fully fleshed-out fantasy world.
Bound to be popular. (Fantasy. 13 & up)Pub Date: April 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-59514-803-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
Returning fans, anyway, will pounce.
Houck kicks off a new story arc in the world of the Tiger’s Curse series with new tigers who live in a northerly setting.
The death of their widowed royal mother touches off a crisis in the Kievian Empire; neither Stacia nor Verusha Stepanov, 17-year-old sword-wielding twin sisters, wants to be named tsarina. But questions of succession get put on hold when a battle with a sorcerer inexplicably turns the two into nonspeaking Siberian tigers. Hints of a cure send them, along with a growing entourage of men to provide assistance (and, perforce, do all the talking), on a long trek. Though most of the cast sticks to genre type, Houck throws in a wild card in the form of hunky, inarticulate Nikolai, who joins the quest because he is enthralled by Verusha—and who also killed his whole family in an act of revenge. Occasional anachronistic dialogue (e.g., “Are you ready, ladies?”) disrupts the tale’s generally earnest tone, as do the clumsy attempts at banter. A third tiger, snarky and blind but conveniently able to see through others’ eyes, trots in late in the story. The events in this setup volume unfold with many a flashback and change in point of view and head toward no sort of resolution—only the cave-dwelling White Shaman of the Tundra’s advice that further journeys are in the offing. The central cast in this Russian-inspired fantasy world presents white; the Indigenous population includes nomadic reindeer herders.
Returning fans, anyway, will pounce. (Fantasy. 13-16)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9798212221696
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
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