Book Review :: Mooncakes, by Suzanne Walker & Wendy Xu

Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker, Wendy Xu
ISBN: 9781549307768
Published by Lion Forge
on 2019-10-15
Genres: Comics & Graphic Novels, Supernatural
Pages: 259
Format: eBook
Source: NetGalley
Goodreads

Nova Huang knows more about magic than your average teen witch. She works at her grandmothers' bookshop, where she helps them loan out spell books and investigate any supernatural occurrences in their New England town.

One fateful night, she follows reports of a white wolf into the woods, and she comes across the unexpected: her childhood crush, Tam Lang, battling a horse demon in the woods. As a werewolf, Tam has been wandering from place to place for years, unable to call any town home.

Pursued by dark forces eager to claim the magic of wolves and out of options, Tam turns to Nova for help. Their latent feelings are rekindled against the backdrop of witchcraft, untested magic, occult rituals, and family ties both new and old in this enchanting tale of self-discovery.

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My thoughts on Mooncakes

Mooncakes was a sweet story about magic, friendship, love, good and evil, and family. This graphic novel covered quite a few different themes and supernatural elements, and I loved how Nova wore hearing aids, Tam’s pronouns were they/them, and how Nova had two kick-butt witch grandmothers and ghost parents who visited on special occasions. Nova’s friend Tatyana was your typical best friend, super bubbly and over-excitable, who knew Nova was a witch and who accepted the fact that Tam was a werewolf just like that. Their friendship was really sweet though, and included things like Tat texting Nova when something weird is happening in the neighbourhood so the witches could come sort it out.

The story itself was a little on the short side, and while I get that it’s always the case with graphic novels, I think a few things could have been fleshed out a little more, and the characters given a bit more detail/back story. However, the illustrations by Wendy Xu are really neat, a sort of cute but feisty style that really suits the story. The NetGalley copy I received wasn’t quite finished in whole, with the last chapter or so not coloured, just sketched out. While the final copy with obviously be complete, it did get a tad confusing and hard to see without the colours in the crucial end scenes. You lost the feel of the book when it suddenly changed to ‘not quite finished’, but that’ll be complete by the time you guys read it.

With a witchy, werewolfy, supernatural feel to it, Mooncakes comes out just in time for Halloween this year, the release date being the 15th of October.

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Thank you to NetGalley and Lion Forge publishers for this ARC copy, who provided me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions and thoughts are my own.