Mooncakes by Wendy Xu and Suzanne Walker

Summary from Goodreads:

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.

Review:

This book was adorable. Mix together the sweet manga-ish cover with a summary of witchcraft, bookstores, and childhood crushes returning, and well this book and I just had to meet. Little did I know it was also full of awesome LGBT rep, fantastic family drama, ghosts, Miyazaki-level cute forest spirits, and fantastic artwork.

I loved it. I pretty much read this in one sitting. It’s probably my favorite graphic novel of the year, and I feel like I’ve been reading a lot of graphic novels lately. There’s some definite flashbacks in it to Sabrina and Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver series, but in a good way, and with it’s own modern, magical twist.

The world created here is just so fun. The ghosts, the magic, the books, the forest, the creatures, the characters that know about it all, all just make for one remarkable setting that I’d love to read more about. Normally, I feel like setting is lacking in graphic novels because there just isn’t the same amount of time/space to cover it, but here it really felt developed and interesting. I felt like I was there, watching it all happen.

I also loved the characters. I would watch them in a tv show in a span of multiple seasons, and can easily see this becoming a series. I hope Xu and Walker do more together. I’m definitely going to keep my eyes open for more. I give this one a 9/10.