The Deep Dark - SFBA Book Club

15.2 x 2.6 x 21.4 cm, 480 pages

English language

Published by Scholastic Graphix.

ISBN:: 978-0-7023-3767-3
ASIN:: B0CD391XMZ

(1 review)

Everyone has secrets. Mags’s has teeth.

Magdalena Herrera is about to graduate high school, but she already feels like an adult with serious responsibilities: caring for her ailing grandmother; working a part-time job; clandestine makeouts with a girl who has a boyfriend. And then there’s her secret, which pulls her into the basement each night, drains her of energy, and leaves her bleeding. A secret that could hurt and even kill if it ever got out -- like it did once before.

So Mags keeps her head down, isolated in her small desert community. That is, until her childhood friend Nessa comes back to town, bringing vivid memories of the past, an intoxicating glimpse of the future, and a secret of her own. Mags won’t get attached, of course. She’s always been strong enough to survive without anyone’s help.

But when the darkness starts to close in on them both, …

Everyone has secrets. Mags’s has teeth.

Magdalena Herrera is about to graduate high school, but she already feels like an adult with serious responsibilities: caring for her ailing grandmother; working a part-time job; clandestine makeouts with a girl who has a boyfriend. And then there’s her secret, which pulls her into the basement each night, drains her of energy, and leaves her bleeding. A secret that could hurt and even kill if it ever got out -- like it did once before.

So Mags keeps her head down, isolated in her small desert community. That is, until her childhood friend Nessa comes back to town, bringing vivid memories of the past, an intoxicating glimpse of the future, and a secret of her own. Mags won’t get attached, of course. She’s always been strong enough to survive without anyone’s help.

But when the darkness starts to close in on them both, Mags will have to drag her secret into the daylight, and choose between risking everything... or having nothing left to lose.

From Molly Knox Ostertag, writer-illustrator of the New York Times and ABA Indie bestselling The Witch Boy trilogy and The Girl from the Sea, comes a darkly beautiful story of identity, family, love, loss, and magic.

1 edition

Justin du Coeur reviewed The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag

A quiet, excellent queer meditation on the burdens we carry

4 stars

Mags is just about grown up, but her life revolves around home by necessity. Part of that is because she needs to care for the aged abuela, but just as much is because of the thing in the basement, that she needs to feed every day. She is stoic about it, never complaining about a weight that would break most adults twice her age.

This all begins to get upended when her childhood best friend, long moved away, comes back home -- now transitioned, with the new name of Nessa. Nessa is more lively, and wants Mags to live more herself. But as far as she knows, the thing in the basement was just a childhood fantasy that they made up when they were kids.

This isn't a big loud fantasy book: aside from its one fantastical element, it is very much grounded in the here and now of small-town …

Mags is just about grown up, but her life revolves around home by necessity. Part of that is because she needs to care for the aged abuela, but just as much is because of the thing in the basement, that she needs to feed every day. She is stoic about it, never complaining about a weight that would break most adults twice her age.

This all begins to get upended when her childhood best friend, long moved away, comes back home -- now transitioned, with the new name of Nessa. Nessa is more lively, and wants Mags to live more herself. But as far as she knows, the thing in the basement was just a childhood fantasy that they made up when they were kids.

This isn't a big loud fantasy book: aside from its one fantastical element, it is very much grounded in the here and now of small-town southwestern life. It's long, but a very fast read -- the average page is 3-5 beautiful panels, often wordless.

There's too much dark reality here to quite call it "sweet", but it's hard not to root for Mags and Nessa: their friendship is bone-deep and heartfelt. But they each have monsters to wrestle with before they can move on and live.

Lovely stuff. It was recommended to me while I was at one of our local comic shops, and I pass on that recommendation.