(courtesy Simon & Schuster)
Coming into your own is, in theory, a wonderful thing to have happen.
You know yourself, you get yourself and you live the kind of life that’s authentic and matters to you; that’s in theory, of course, which is a wonderful place to live where everything plays out just as envisioned.
But we’re stuck here in real life, and whatever your circumstances, working out who you are and living it with anything approaching satisfying effectiveness, isn’t always the easier thing.
Especially not when you’re on a timeline.
12-year-old goblin witch, Beetle, who resides with her grandmother in the creepy but weirdly cosy town of ‘Allows, is facing the mother of all deadlines, with a week to fully own the fluidity of magic which evades her but which her grandmother, the town’s chief witch, has in broom-riding spades, rescue her friend, Blob Ghost from a soon-to-be-demolished mall where they’re tethered by an unknown force and rekindle a friendship with her one time bestie Kat who’s back in town and doing brilliantly well at this magic and coming into your own thing.
Yep, in the visual and narrative delight that is Beetle & the Hollowbones by Aliza Layne, sweet, well-intentioned but magically klutzy – can you ride a broomstick upside down? Turns out you can! Whoops! – Beetle is well and truly up against it, but being the kind of goblinly gal she is, she’s not about to quit when there’s still a small chance she can rescue her friend, reunite with another old one who be more than just a slightly out of touch BFF and sow the world she is worthy of her birthright.
Pretty much in that order, really, because Beetle has a heart of gold and then some and what matters to her are those with whom she’s connected, all of them joined by a fierce loyalty that impels our intrepidly lovely protagonist to do what she must as quickly as she can to make sure they are okay.
To complicate things still further in a tale full of the undead and dragons and ghosts aplenty, there is evil afoot and it’s far too close to Beetle for her own comfort (and no, it’s not her grandmother who is the epitome of everything a grandmother should be and then some!).
(courtesy Simon & Schuster)
While Beetle & the Hollowbones is definitely targeted at a younger demo who will love the mysticism and vibrantly imaginative worldbuilding which springs to life so fully formed you quickly forget you’re in a story – yes, ‘Allows feels that real and it’s a testament to Layne that she’s brings it into colourfully vivaciously being so effortlessly and beautifully – older readers will find a great deal with which to identify in a story that absolutely nails what it’s like to be lost in life, how much friendships mean to our sense of self and place of being in the world and how good it feels to be able to help them and realise something lost buried within yourself.
And let’s face it – who ever really stops grappling with those issues?
The gloriously charming part of Beetle & the Hollowbones – well to be fair one of the gloriously charming things; this graphic novel is a big hug of cosy, neon-lit, all-in capitals DELIGHT from start to finish – is that it conveys a slew of life-changing messaging but in a way that feels naturally and organic, accompanied by artwork that is nothing but luminously alive and immersively vital.
The colours are bright, the characters gorgeously and affectingly engaging and the town alternates between menace and cosiness as needed, all of which represented with a leap-off-the-page vivacity that dazzles and subsumes you into the story so effectively you forget, as noted, rather quickly that none of this is real.
Honestly, it feels very movingly sweet, fun and real, with Beetle & the Hollowbones anchored with real emotional force by Beetle who might be lost at the start but who discovers what she’s made of and what she needs to do to save her friends and her town from some fairly terrible things.
If you’ve ever wished a hero was just plain lovely but made of grit and determination too, then Beetle is your hero, a young goblin who, it turns out, does have quite a gift for magic but every bit as importantl for standing by her friends and more in a tale full of tender queer attraction and love and a gloriously encompassing sense of belonging that makes you sigh at the wit and wonderfulness of it all.
Beetle & the Hollowbones is a visual, narrative and world-building joy, a graphic novel so richly and warmly realised, with characters and a setting that remind how good it is to be yourself, to belong and to fight for what matters to you, that you will be sad to leave Beetle behind but happy that she’s saved all the things that matter to her and that maybe, just maybe, she’ll finally be able to ride a broom without crashing.
(courtesy Simon & Schuster)