Visually dynamic magickal adventures.
Five new students are brought together at Mystik University to form a team of powerful magick users in this collection of the first three volumes of a DC Universe comic.
After her father vanished during a stage performance, Zatanna Zatara was whisked away to Mystik University to learn to control her power. There she met her roommates, Pia Morales and June “Enchantress” Moone, as well as classmates Sebastian Faust and Davit Sargon. They’re all there to learn how to control their gifts and use them for good. Together, they take on the new challenges they encounter, including a secret society, a giant, multi-eyed, amorphous green creature whose intentions are unclear, and, of course, their classes. Meanwhile, the faculty members race against time to try to figure out which of the young people will become the Malevolence, a force that will someday destroy the Earth. The characters struggle with learning to trust themselves and each other, highlighting their relatability and humanity. The pacing sometimes feels uneven as Kwitney balances the looming life-and-death threat of the Malevolence with the lighter college student moments, but the story is compelling overall. The illustrations pop thanks to their saturated colors and bold line work. The panels are easy to follow, contributing to an absorbing reading experience. Zatanna, Faust, and Enchantress appear white, while Pia is coded Latine, and Davit is cued Sikh.
Visually dynamic magickal adventures. (character sketches, cover sketches) (Graphic fantasy. 13-18)Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781799500629
Page Count: 176
Publisher: DC
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 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
A nail-biting tale set in a beautifully rendered world of darkness and danger.
Best friends Petra and Jade live in an orphanage on the outskirts of a rundown city that’s grown up around the Void, a mysterious chasm that’s miles deep and wide.
Desperate to escape their grinding poverty, the 17-year-old girls work together as divers, guiding wealthy, thrill-seeking tourists on excursions into the complete darkness of the Void, with its carnivorous plants and vicious, cunning predators. The divers risk losing limbs—and their lives—and few ever reach the Void’s Sixth Layer, where lies the ancient city of Obscuris, which sank into the earth long ago, taking a mysterious power source and advanced technologies with it. A successful dive to Obscuris would secure the girls’ financial futures, but dark-haired, timid Petra is too afraid to try, despite Jade’s pushing. Only when green-eyed Jade, who’s pale-skinned with auburn hair, goes missing during a botched dive does Petra screw up her courage. Together with fellow diver Flint, who has dark-brown skin and a prosthetic leg and to whom she was once close, Petra heads back into the Void for what she promises herself will be her very last dive—all the way to the Sixth Layer. But what she finds in the deep is peril, pain, and something genuinely shocking. This gory novel moves at a fast pace, and its strengths include its lush and innovative worldbuilding, gruesome body horror, and unflinching commitment to the bleakness of its narrative.
A nail-biting tale set in a beautifully rendered world of darkness and danger. (Horror. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9781967967247
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Bindery Books
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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