Reviews with content warning for Blood - Il ragazzo strega

Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Il ragazzo strega by Molly Knox Ostertag

23 reviews

readaloud_mom's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful mysterious fast-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? No

4.5

My kid and I both really liked this graphic novel! We found Aster to be an appealing main character, and his sprawling, quirky extended family were pretty fun, too!

As noted by other reviewers, Aster seems to be some variety of gender-noncomforming/genderqueer/nonbinary/etc., though the book never declares a specific identity. (I have mixed feelings, but am basically cool with the lack of name; I feel like it works with the worldbuilding that Aster wouldn't have the language to talk about his identity, I know I sure didn't when I was his age).

There is also some quiet queer-parenting rep here - on the family tree, I can see that Aster has an aunt who is married to another woman, and his friend Charlie has two dads. I would have liked to ever actually SEE Charlie's two dads, and I would have liked to see the married aunts interacting. For instance, one of the stolen cousins has two moms, and the other two stolen cousins are brothers with a mom and a dad. We see the mom and dad hugging each other and Bearing Up Bravely and so on, but we don't get those same kinds of images with the two-mom family - I actually wonder a little bit about whether all of the queer parents were added to the story at the last minute, after much of the drawing was done? (FYI, subsequent books in this series remain pretty light on the aunts, but do introduce Charlie's dads as visible background characters.)

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kaetheluise_nckl's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging inspiring tense fast-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

5.0

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shelvesofivy's review against another edition

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adventurous inspiring mysterious fast-paced

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

4.5

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midnightverde's review against another edition

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adventurous inspiring mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This was a real gem of a book! I love how the protagonist, Aster, was having struggles with fitting into cultural expectations for his gender and magical culture, because there are such obvious connections to people in our world who also don’t quite fit gendered expectations. I also liked that he befriended a non-magical girl who immediately knew the rules were not serving him and that he should help his male relatives by using witchcraft. She’s also breaking gendered expectations of what it means to be a girl in the non-magic world and mentioned having dads a couple times, which was a nice way to be even more inclusive in a simple way because that’s the dream, just having a character give the basic details about their family and it’s instantly known and no big deal.

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jessnreads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious fast-paced

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

5.0

I'm reading everything by Molly Knox Ostertag now, no questions. This was a really good book and graphic novels have become my weakeness, especially when they have magic.

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foreverinastory's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional 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

This was so good! Very wholesome.

The Witch Boy follows Aster, a young boy from a family of magical people. The men are all shapeshifters while the women are all witches. Aster has never felt attached to being a shapeshifter and he'd much rather learn witchery. When his boy cousins start disappearing, Aster might be the only one capable of saving them.

I really enjoyed Aster's character. He must be protected at all costs. His story really shows gender exclusive activities are really harmful. I'm so glad he found a friend in Charlie! She was the best and always so supportive of him.

I enjoyed this world and I'm really curious to see how things will change for Aster in the sequel. I hope we also get to see more of the world. I wonder if there will be any trans or nonbinary characters. That was really the only thing this was missing.

Rep: biracial male MC, Black female side character with a broken leg and two dads, side characters with two moms, multiple BIPOC characters (specific ethnicity was not indicated), fat white female side characters.

CWs: Bullying, body horror, sexism. Moderate: violence, blood, animal death, injury/injury detail. Minor: gaslighting.

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sadie_g's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

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

4.0

I really enjoyed this book, even though it’s pretty short I feel like it did a good job of building the plot. I didn’t really like how the climax and resolution of the story was so short though, I really how liked it a bit more if it went on for a bit longer. The art style was beautiful, and I especially liked how the artist used colours. And it’s just a great story about breaking the gender norms and being true to yourself.

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