SUNDERWORLD, VOL. I

Seventeen-year-old Leopold Berry discovers that the realm of Sunder from his favorite TV series, Max’s Adventures in Sunderworld, is in fact a real place with very real stakes.

When Leopold starts having bizarre visions, such as of a raccoon with its tail on fire and a speeding red trolley in the middle of busy Los Angeles traffic, he suspects he’s getting glimpses of the extraordinary place called Sunder, a fantasy world from his beloved show. He confesses his visions to his best friend, Emmet Worthington, and the pair wind up using a special token to take the trolley, Angels Flight, into Sunder. There, they discover that the complex world of sparks—people with magical abilities—includes connections to Leopold’s mother, who died when he was 12. At the heart of it all, Leopold is trying to figure out why he’s been pulled into this world and whether there’s more to him than his deep fear of being “average and insignificant” and dealing with his father’s frustrated rages. Riggs’ writing is tight and well paced. Some incredible action scenes leap off the pages, and Sunder is a blur of dangerous situations, well-drawn characters, and magical devices. The ending will make readers wish they could immediately reach for the second volume. Leopold, like most of the cast, is cued white; Emmet is Black.

A fully imagined fantastical world with compelling characters and a nail-biting cliffhanger.