Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker, Wendy Xu
Release: October 22nd 2019
Format: Ebook
Publisher: Oni Press
Source: Netgalley
Synopsis:
A story of love and demons, family and witchcraft.
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.
Mooncakes Review:
A big thank you to NetGalley and OniPress for providing me an advanced reader’s copy of “Mooncakes“.
Firstly, I loved the diversity in these books! Nova is a queer, hard-of-hearing witch, while Tam is a non-binary werewolf. Also, both of Nova’s grandmothers are also in a relationship! I loved Nova’s interactions with her grandmothers, and her relationship with Tam as well.
The story is very endearing and makes you fuzzy and warm all over. The illustrations by Wendy Xu are wonderful and compliment the story so well. Moreover, I loved the cute mystical creatures from the woods and wanted to see more of them! Furthermore, there are some quirky characters like the cousin with the pigeon head, who was hilarious! As I received an advanced copy of the book, the pages towards the end were not colored. I am interested to pick up this book after all the final revisions and see how it turns out.
There are a few minor things which I felt could have been better. For example, I would have liked to the backstory between Tam and their parents. I was also a bit confused as to what the cult was trying to achieve by getting rid of Tam, and there is no motive mentioned. The plot also seems to change directions midway. For instance, the first half seems to focus mainly on the ghost horse in the woods, but in the second half, it completely shifts focus to the cult. While I am ok with this, I felt like the shift of focus between the two came out of nowhere and felt very rushed towards the end.
But overall, “Mooncakes” is a charming graphic novel if you are in the mood to read about diversity, love and magic!
