Review by New York Times Review
ALL adolescents face two monsters: insecurity about where they are now, and the stress of impending adulthood. Fantasy writers have long asked us to imagine how tough that would be if supernatural forces were also in the mix. Two new graphic novels spin enthralling tales of young heroes slaying those inner beasts - right along with the kind that suck your blood and try to kill you. FAKE BLOOD (Simon & Schuster, 336 pp., $14.99; ages 10 and up) is the third book and first graphic novel written and drawn by Whitney Gardner. Her delightful tale juxtaposes a preteen crush, a tranquil, woodsy neighborhood in the Pacific Northwest, and vampires, ft's the kind of story that connects well with its intended audience - so well that my 11-year-old son pilfered my review copy and refused to return it until he was done. Gardner's protagonist, AJ, thinks he's the most boring sixth grader at Spoons Middle School. He just wants to be cool and interesting. How can he get his crush, Nia, to notice him? In an act of creative desperation, AJ realizes that the key to Nia's heart is her obsession with young adult vampire fiction. He goes full goth, with Halloween fangs and fake blood, and pretends to be a vampire. His awkward charade is convincing enough that Nia finally notices him. But AJ is shocked to learn that Nia is actually a vampire slayer, and AJ becomes her next target. As he tries to prevent the love of his life from driving a stake through his heart, a true monster threat endangers AJ and his friends. AJ's transformation from lovesick kid to wannabe vampire feels oddly believable. Instead of a breezy metamorphosis over a quick montage, here AJ becomes a vampire little by little. As his appearance and his confidence develop, AJ even makes the geeky red sunglasses he won at the library's summer reading contest, emblazoned with the word " READ!," look kind of cool. At over 300 pages, this is one of the longer graphic novels out there, yet every page propels the book's rich character development. Everyone we meet in this book is a little weird in a unique way. One of my favorites is AJ's 15-year-old sister. Their nuanced relationship feels real in the way that the connection between know-it-all older sisters and annoying younger brothers can shift from exasperation to love. Gardner gets bonus points for a refreshing fart joke from AJ's sister, since those kinds of lines typically go to boy characters. 1 would have liked it if the story had had a few more surprises. AJ's discovery that Nia is a vampire slayer is one of the biggest revelations, but the book's own back cover gives that away. Still, while the action builds slowly, the story's emotional resonance keeps readers fully engaged, and the artwork is pared down and easy to follow. AJ's sister insists that "all 11-yearolds are boring," but by the end of "Fake Blood," he really proves her wrong. He is his own kind of cool, even if he's not a real vampire. THERE IS NO SHORTAGE of monsters in SCARLETT HART: MONSTER HUNTER (First Second, 208 pp., $14.99; ages 10 to 14), the first middle-grade book written by the Y.A. author Marcus Sedgwick, with art by Thomas Taylor, who is best known for the cover art for the British edition of Book 1 in the Harry Potter series. This book is their first graphic novel collaboration. Scarlett Hart is the exceedingly brave but reckless orphan of two famous monster hunters, who died fighting the monsters that terrorize the citizens of England on a daily basis. Now raised by her family's butler and housekeeper, Scarlett is angstridden over whether she will ever be a great monster slayer like her parents. The problem is that Scarlett is too young to legally fight monsters. If she is caught by the authorities known as The Watch, she could lose her family's estate. Furthermore, not only has she inherited her parents' home with all its monster memorabilia, she has also inherited her parents' sworn enemy, Count Stankovic (or "Stinkovic," as Scarlett likes to call him). Sedgwick has created a world that could be 1940 s London, but with some steampunk elements and monsters. It feels retro, but the hero is refreshingly modern. While Scarlett is brash, she is also, in her quieter moments, very unsure about her ability to fulfill her monster-hunter destiny. She is adept at pistols and explosives and swords, and she thinks she's good at driving (actually, she's a terrible driver). But she is also adept at failure. "We stink" is her refrain whenever things go wrong, which is often. And there's no room for failure when a mysterious and deadly outbreak of monsters plagues the city. Scarlett must embark on a seat-of-her-pants, take-no-monster-prisoners journey. Sedgwick's story and Taylor's images work well together to create an immersive experience. Taylor's sequential art keeps the adventure and the reader's eye moving. When Scarlett battles zombies with a sword, Taylor's fight choreography kept me as riveted as Indiana Jones movies did when I was a kid. Scarlett fights sea monsters, furry monsters, fire-breathing monsters. Monsters get sliced, diced and blown up. The gore is not too gory, and the action is terrifically fun. Young readers will find Scarlett aspirational. She's brave, but not unafraid. She's bold, but not arrogant. She also has an amazing talent, which I confess I envy, for creative insults aimed at her nemesis, like "jumped-up mustache waxer ... peabrained tire muncher... scabby nosed cat eater, animal-faced sewer dweller!" Because Sedgwick is so adept at worldbuilding, I wanted to see more of the history and society of the London he's created. Likewise, in between the monsterbashing, there are wonderfully tender scenes with Scarlett, the butler and the housekeeper, and more of these moments between the young monster hunter and her parental figures would have been welcome. The end of the book has some loose ends, which I hope mean that Scarlett and company will be returning. But you have to feel sorry for the monsters. Scarlett will undoubtedly slay them, masterfully insulting them in the process. JORGE AGUIRRE is the author of the graphic novels "Giants Beware!," "Monsters Beware!" and "Dragons Beware!," illustrated by Rafael Rosado.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 14, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
In Portland, AJ is entering the sixth grade, along with his competitive friends Hunter and Ivy and his secret crush, vampire-obsessed Nia. AJ feels his life is boring and doesn't think Nia will find anything interesting about him. So when they are paired together for a research project, AJ pretends to be a vampire, only to learn Nia is a vampire slayer. With a well-balanced mix of angst and amusement in her debut graphic novel, Gardner fills her story with a diverse cast of vivid characters, who are even more believable when they lie to appear more interesting. In her comical full-color artwork, Gardner keeps the pace at a tidy clip, interspersing frequent full-page spreads and unconventional perspectives among more typical panel layouts. The expressive characters are drawn in a cartoonish, Muppet-faced style, while the settings are detailed and atmospheric. With recognizable references to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Twilight saga, the book wryly mixes paranormal with mystery. It's sizable at 300-plus pages, but reassure young readers that this moves fast and has lots of laughs.--Suzanne Temple Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Gardner offers a slightly new take on the perennial vampire love story: boy meets girl, boy feigns vampirism to get girl's attention, and girl pursues boy-in order to slay him. AJ's fanged approach has its drawbacks, but when he and Nia work together on a report about Transylvania, they soon realize that there is a real vampire in their Northwest U.S. community, and only they are prepared to confront it. Gardner's tale, which includes a share of lighthearted pokes at the Twilight series, is a fun romp through sixth grade that's made all the more amusing by AJ's cool sister and hyper-competitive friends, Hunter and Ivy. Quirky visual details, such as refrigerator magnets and characters' unusually shaped noses, and fantasy elements, such as the hearts and rainbows that flow from the drinking fountain when AJ sees Nia use it, balance Gardner's simple drawing style and minimal backgrounds. The result focuses the eye on the action and keeps the story moving swiftly. Ages 10-up. Agent: Brent Taylor, TriadaUS. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Horn Book Review
Gardners quasi-satirical graphic novel begins with the bookish AJ on the first day of sixth grade. Wrestling with feelings of insecurity (Because Im me. Im boring), AJ is particularly uncertain about letting his crush, the vampire-obessed Nia, know how he feels. After being paired for a research project, AJ and Nia select Transylvania as their topic, prompting AJ to read Moonlight, a (fictional) popular work of campy vampire fiction. AJ soon convinces himself that a new vampire-inspired persona will impress Nia, so he gradually transforms his look and behavior. AJs act works all too well, convincing Nia that he actually is a vampire. Readers discover, in a grandly theatrical double-page spread, that Nia is a vampire hunter determined to slay the undead. After a close call with one of Nias wooden stakes, AJ admits to his attention-seeking, and the pair soon realizes that their peculiar teacher, Mr. Niles, is the real vampire. A wild series of events then occurs, including kidnapping, cellphone hacking, threats with holy water, and a truce between Mr. Niles and his students. Although Gardners plotting occasionally wavers, her digitally rendered, full-color cartooning remains cogent and consistent throughout. Smooth shifts from double-page spreads to complex multi-panel pages of nearly every configuration imaginable keep the story fresh and flowing. An enjoyable romp, even if it lacks a bit of bite. patrick gall (c) Copyright 2018. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Think vampires have had their day? Gardner's debut graphic novel proves the vein is not completely tapped.Eleven-year-old AJ feels utterly unremarkable. He spent the summer before sixth grade reading and at the library, while his ultracompetitive besties, Ivy and Hunter, spent theirs scaling volcanoes and bungee jumping. AJ harbors an adorable middle school crush on Nia, a fellow bookworm obsessed with vampires. Trying to catch Nia's eye, AJ decides to impersonate a bloodsucker, sprinkling himself with glitter, painting dark circles under his eyes, and slathering his gums with fake blood. However, things do not go as planned when Nia does suspect him as the undead. When AJ's deception is revealed, he and Nia discover an actual vampire in their midst believed his ruseand that more than one person in his life has secrets of their own. While many might say the vampire genre bled out years ago, Gardner has imbued it with new life, poking fun at well-known tropesespecially Twilightin a manner sure to inspire hearty belly laughs. Her full-color illustrations are eye-catching, and her plotting is tightly wrought; think Raina Telgemeier with a Noelle Stevenson slant. At a hefty but highly enjoyable 336 pages, Gardner's middle school romp is a magnum opus; here's hoping all her work is as wonderful. Main character AJ is white, as is Ivy, but Hunter and Nia have brown skin, and Nia wears her hair in cornrows.A dazzling debut from a new author to watch. (Graphic fantasy. 8-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
