Content warnings: family emotional abuse and gaslighting (VERY challenged)
Summary [courtesy of Goodreads]: In the eerie town of ‘Allows, some people get to be magical sorceresses, while other people have their spirits trapped in the mall for all ghastly eternity. Then there’s twelve-year-old goblin-witch Beetle, who’s caught in between. She’d rather skip being homeschooled completely and spend time with her best friend, Blob Glost. But the mall is getting boring, and B.G. is cursed to haunt it, tethered there by some unseen force. And now Beetle’s old best friend, Kat, is back in town for a sorcery apprenticeship with her Aunt Hollowbone. Kat is everything Beetle wants to be: beautiful, cool, great at magic, and kind of famous online. Beetle’s quickly being left in the dust. But Kat’s mentor has set her own vile scheme in motion. If Blob Ghost doesn’t escape the mall soon, their afterlife might be coming to a very sticky end. Now, Beetle has less than a week to rescue her best ghost, encourage Kat to stand up for herself, and confront the magic she’s been avoiding for far too long. And hopefully ride a broom without crashing.
This utter delight of a graphic novel was completely off my radar til I watched an awesome vlog from PucksAndPaperbacks about queer graphic novels. So thanks a TON to Alex for the recommendation!
I’m not sure there’s anything cuter than this story of a young goblin-witch Beetle, her new best friend Blob Ghost (an agender Blob Ghost who’s mysteriously bound to the about-to-be-demolished local mall), and her old best friend (and necromancer sorceress) Kat Hollowbone, who just might become her girlfriend by the story’s end. (Spoiler: she does! It’s so freaking sweet! I cried.)
It’s also the story of Kat’s pretty damn evil aunt, who emotionally abuses Kat and cuts her off from her friends and interests on her quest to regain the power and hold her family once had over the town they all live in. This part can be a lot, but it’s handled with great care, and Beetle and her secretly superpowered grandma make sure that Kat lands on her feet, once all of the conflict gets resolved.
And then there’s Blob Ghost, the nonverbal ghost whose link to the mall provides the main plot arc of the novel. It’s surprisingly touching, and the final scene where Blob Ghost chooses their new name is (fair warning) another chance to sob like a baby, in the best way.
In the end, this is a book set in a queer-normative world, about queerness and found family (that includes some biological family, in this case), about asserting yourself, and about things working out toward a happily ever after despite trauma and abuse. It’s just so damn heartwarming.
As the first volume in what will eventually be a trilogy [link to tweet here from her twitter], this is such a fun, high-stakes yet high-comfort read, and I can’t wait until I can dive back into the world again. In the meantime, re-reading it again and again will have to suffice. (The literal minute I finished the library copy I borrowed, I ordered it from my bookstore.)
