Book Review: Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker, Wendy Xu

Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker, Wendy Xu is a graphic novel for young adults. It is 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 grabbed my attention quickly and kept it. Nova is a sweet girl, honest and a bit reserved except for those she is close to. Tam is clearly struggling with family issues and I enjoyed seeing them reconnect with Nova and found their personal strength. Their battle together against a demon was very well done, and I had trouble stepping away from the book when I had to. The conflict and resolution was well written, and I would be happy to see Tam and Nova's story continue on. I thought the art work captured the mood, emotion, and themes of the book quite well. It was visually attractive and added to the story consistently. I also like how simply and honestly all of the relationships are handled. No one makes a big deal out of pronoun choice or who anyone love- because it should not be a big deal. I wish this level of simple acceptance was more prevalent in the real world. I also love that none of the relationship aspects were played up as a qimick- which happens was too often. It was just pure and organic. 

Mooncakes is a lovely graphic novel that kept me interested and engaged for the entire read. My only disappointment is that I had a digital copy rather than a paper copy because I really wanted to get a closer look at some of the pages without the distortion that comes from zooming in on a digital page.