A review by gee_reads_books
Season of the Bruja, Vol. 1 by Aaron Durán

4.0

"We are the stewards of the dead."

In "Season of the Bruja", by scriptwriter Aaron Durán and artist Sara Soler, we follow young Althalia in her discovery of the powers she has inherited as the next bruja. As an employee in a supernatural museum, with a Chupacabra boss and a were-coyote coworker, Althalia is no stranger to the magic and traditions of her Indigenous heritage. Still, when an encounter with an odd priest results in Althalia losing the person who was the most precious to her, she'll find out just how much she didn't know about her bruja side... In the most dangerous way.

This graphic novel was a delight. I've been struggling to decide whether it was a 3-star or a 4-star read for me, but in the end, I've decided to give it the high rating it deserves.

"Season of the Bruja" is lush with elements and small details from Indigenous South-American cultures (I'd dare say that it's the Mexica civilization we see here, to be precise? From the mention of Mictlán), and it's immediately obvious that it's been conceived partly as a social denounce of colonialism, but also partly as an ode of remembrance and love for said cultures. From the inclusion of small sentences in Latin-American Spanish, to the flowers that crown Althalia's head (I believe they are marigolds), one can see how loving and devoted the representation of pre-colombine cultures is, and how much effort went into honouring them in this graphic novel. There isn't any cultural infodump at any moment, although I would've loved to hear a quick, small explanation—or even just an introduction by name, so that the reader can look them up on the Internet—about the two deities we meet when Althalia gets sucked into her grief.

Althalia was quite a realistic main character. As a teenage girl, she's impulsive, which mixes with her rage and intergenerational trauma. In this sense, even if her short fuse sometimes made me want to scream (then again, so does the short fuse all IRL teens have, so: not an issue), I really appreciated the social denounce component. Even though she doesn't know Spanish, or any indigenous language, Althalia still feels grief and rage about colonisation, and the loss of her people's ways of life and freedom at the hands of Spanish conquistadores. In that sense, I do have to say that sometimes I felt like the comic was a little too black-and-white—the bad guys were over-the-top evil, and their speeches were slightly artificial. This didn't stop me from enjoying the comic, although sometimes it did make me feel a little thrown-off. I also felt like Dana and Chuey were a little underused, since they had so much potential! I would love to see them get a bit more of protagonism in future installments of this comic, if there's ever a continuation.

Ever since I read "Us", I've been a huge fan of Sara Soler's art, and it was absolutely beautiful here. The colouring was stunning, and the lineart was really dynamic and powerful. I feel like her art was exactly what this story needed, and contributed to the story and world of SotB as much as the script did. On the other hand, the script itself had quite a quick pace, which was great in terms of packing a whole story with a beginning, two or three climaxes, and an ending, in just under 140 pages; but, sometimes, felt rushed. I'm a sucker for slower paces, mind you, so this is a purely subjective opinion.

All in all, this was an excellent read! Full of witchiness and magic, it's your perfect fall companion, and it'll leave you looking forwards to seeing more of Althalia's shenanigans.

I received an e-ARC from OniPress via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions listed here are my own.