Reviews with content warning for Violence - Coven

You Still Have a Family

Author Jennifer Dugan and Illustrator Kit Seaton team up to create a vibrant graphic novel about found family, and healing from tragedy. Emily Sarah Covington (Emsy) loves her life of surfing in sunny California with her friends, and girlfriend Joss. Where she lives a normal life despite her abilities as an elemental witch. When a sudden death in her family’s coven brings her and her parents back to New York she faces family secrets, and a mysterious killer. Emsy must help her new friends Ben and Ash find answers, and come to terms with the darker powers of magic.

Kit Seaton’s artwork is beautiful in every page. Capturing the atmospheres of each location, and the feelings of each character. Emsy travels from bright sandy beaches in sunny California to a New York fall. Kit Seaton also captures the blandness of Emsy’s reluctance to enjoy her new home, and scenes of blue and gray when she is afraid of losing her family. Every image moves the story as Jennifer Dugan writes about the choices Emsy must make for the sake of her newfound family.

Emsy does not learn a lot about her coven or elemental magic of fire due to a lot of coven secrets. She is left to find out answers by herself in order to help the mourning Ben, with the help of his secret crush Ash. She struggles to come to terms with her previous normal life, and her current responsibilities to her coven. This leads to a sad breakup with her girlfriend, and a lot of growing up. What is most important is that, despite all the intrigue, Emsy stands by Ben as he mourns his family. Though their coven is small, the three of them are family.

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wornpagesandendlesscoffey's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

It was cute, but could have used better character development.

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robinks's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I liked all the queerness and witchy magic. There were a lot of unanswered questions about the world though, and Emsy kind of annoyed me.

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emily_mh's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I just felt annoyed reading this book. Everything seemed to get on my nerves and this review is an attempt at explaining why.

It fell at the first hurdle with the main character, Emsy. I’m still appalled over that choice in name. I’m an Emily and have met plenty of Emilys and not one of them have called themselves Emsy! Emsy is like a jokey nickname your family calls you, not something to VOLUNTARILY attach to yourself. I couldn’t get past it the whole book. But my issue with the MC doesn’t stop at her name. She was super unlikeable. It wasn’t even her attitude to moving or her frustration with her girlfriend, both of which seemed understandable to me; I just did not like her. And this sentiment extended to pretty much all the characters. I usually don’t even mind unlikeable characters but for some reason this cast just did not work for me. A final note on Emsy (ick): her character development is not shown on page well;

she does a sudden switch between wanting to leave and wanting to stay

In terms of plot, the mystery was intriguing enough to keep my hooked and reading and was perfectly fine for a YA graphic novel. However, the ending was so abrupt. There was no real resolution concerning

Emsy’s mum, girlfriend, or best friend

. Also, I found it totally unrealistic that

the adults would use the kids as bait without their knowledge, after all the fuss they kicked up over keeping them safe, and Ben having just gone through one of the most traumatic events that a human can. At the very least the adults could have clued the kids in on their involvement. But to be honest I find it unlikely that there wasn’t another way to flush the murderer out that didn’t have to involve the kids at all

Finally, the art was mostly good but there were definitely some weird panels that didn’t look like they were meant to be the final version of themselves. So yeah, this book was not a hit with me.

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1quillb's review against another edition

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adventurous funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This was great! The illustrations were amazing, and I really understood the character’s emotions through them. The storyline was also really interesting, although parts of it were annoying—Emsy and Ben are very dumb sometimes :/
I liked that it wasn’t super predictable, too. You meet enough characters that you end up thinking one person is the death witch, then another person, then another… it makes the story interesting to read, instead of having a plot you can pinpoint within ten pages of starting it.

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purplepenning's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

This seemed like a good introduction to this witchy world and potentially compelling cast of young LGBTQ covenmates but fell short of being a satisfying story in its own right. The pacing was off for me, with too many panels committed to early angst and stubborn ignorance, leaving too few for later character development and story resolution. I'm not the target YA reader, though, so their mileage may vary.

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