Beetle is a goblin-witch being homeschooled by her grandma. She spends much of her free time with her best friend, Blob Ghost, and having fun all over the mall. When not at the mall, she’s with her grandma wishing that she could ditch homeschooling and spend more time with her bestie who is cursed to haunt the mall and the property it resides on. When Beetle’s former best friend, Kat, returns to town, Beetle gets nervous. What if Kat doesn’t remember her? She’s spent years at a prestigious school learning magic and now she’s got a snazzy apprenticeship to devote her time to. To make things worse, Kat’s mentor is determined to tear down the mall no matter who resides in it when it goes down.
This book is absolutely wonderful. I’m delighted with how fleshed out the characters and world are given it is a graphic novel, and a stand alone one at that. I came out of this book feeling like I know the characters and world very well. There’s a variety of characters and settings in addition to backstory that we slowly learn as the story unfolds. Plus, the artwork is detailed, colorful, and stunning.
The characters are so wonderful and relatable. Beetle has her old and new best friend, and she’s got a major crush on one. Of course, she’s concerned about not coming off as weird toward Kat. That weirdness is actual just the big crush she is harboring. We’ve all been there, especially when we were younger. What if we come off is strange but it’s really just our crush showing?! The tragedy! Especially when you’re not sure if they feel the same. Phew. Talk about having a flashback to my own pre-teen years.
Throw in a bit of magic and a crisis on a magical level and you’ve got three friends putting their heads together and bickering along the way. And boy, is there some bickering. I love when friends fight in books because it’s very realistic to butt heads instead of everything being all sunshine and rainbows.
All in all, this is a great read and I highly recommend it. I’m going to keep an eye out for more books from Aliza Layne in the future.
My review was originally found at Beachbum Bookworm where I was a guest book reviewer in 2020.
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