Graphic Sapphic Werewolves: Artie and the Wolf Moon, and Squad

What’s better than one graphic novel about a queer girl becoming a werewolf?

Two graphic novels about sapphic werewolves!

That’s right: there are two kick ass graphic novels about queer girls of color who just happen to ~become~ quite hairy every so often.

Ugh these were both too cute! Squad is young adult, and Artie and the Wolf Moon is middle grade/lower young adult.

Anywho, here are my super short reviews!

Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

🌺🌺🌺🌺/5

The worst thing about transferring to a new high school? Fitting in. But right away, loner Becca is adopted by the most popular girls in the school! At first glance, things are pretty great…until Becca is almost attacked by a boy at a party one night, and discovers her friends have some secrets of their own. Inducted into this unique club, Becca is lured in by the idea of teaching awful boys a lesson—because it’s either eat or be hungry, and Becca cannot be hungry. Then things start to get complicated when the wrong boy is killed…

Okay. So what if Mean Girls was making out with Pretty Little Liars and then Teen Wolf came along and bit the living shit out of them and then it was the full moon and now they all have to eat human flesh once a month? And then Heathers waltzed in and brained everyone with a croquet club?

Then you’d get Squad.

This was fantastic.

I loved the artwork.

I loved the characters.

I loved the bloody amoral juiciness of the squad and the girls and Becca going along with it because she wanted to belong so badly. And I love that in the middle of all the gory flesheating and hunting was a delightful coming-out story.

I don’t want to reveal too much more, because this was just too much fun (and honestly it’s not really that twisty or deep, but while there’s nothing too earthshattering or new, it just a fun, bloody romp) and the perfect kick off to a spoopy October. Which is great, because this releases October 5th.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

Squad releases October 5th, 2021, from Greenwillow Books.

Artie and the Wolf Moon by Olivia Stephens

🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺/5

Artie has never felt like she belongs, particularly not as the only Black girl in her all-white rural Oregon town. The only thing that keeps her grounded is photography, particularly while using her late dad’s camera and his equipment—and the other are the strange rules her mother imposes on her, like never leaving the house at night. But one night, the moon is just too full and gorgeous, and Artie sneaks out to take some pictures—and runs into a wolf! Scrambling to get away, she is shocked when the wolf runs up to their back porch and…tugs on a bathrobe? So turns out there are some secrets in Artie’s family tree, but wolves and human bullies are the worst of her concerns. That would be the vampires.

Okay, that’s a wild synopsis right there, but lemme tell you that this was just fantastic. I loved it.

There is so much Black history seamlessly wrapped into the werewolf mythos, and the sense of family and community and moving past the hurts of old history to find something new. And there’s the wonderful exploration of discovering your own power with people who are just like you in every way.

And, of course, the idea of friendship. Artie, a girl who has always wanted to belong but never did, finds herself making two new friends: the werewolf daughter of her mom’s childhood friend who lives too far away, and the new girl in school, who is impossibly cool (and a little pushy).

With budding teenage rebellion and growing independence, Artie explores her world and finds herself walking into a trap that had been laid for years—and few ways out.

Like I said, it’s so good! Very quick, and the artwork is just *chef’s kiss* perfection.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

Artie and the Wolf Moon releases September 7, 2021, from Graphic Universe.

Hopefully I’ve got you *howling* with delight

(sorry, could not resist that awful pun)