Former Sesame Street Muppets creative director Laurent Linn's debut YA novel combines graphic novel and prose formats for a funny, sexy and moving experience.
Sixteen-year-old Adrian Piper knows how to fly below the radar better than anyone else at Rock Hollow High School, near Dallas, Tex. He wears monochromatic outfits, keeps his homosexuality firmly in the closet, and never signs his name to Graphite, the Renaissance-era superhero webcomic he draws in his spare time. When a school bully brutally attacks an openly gay student, though, Adrian slowly realizes moments choose heroes, and this moment has chosen him.
By his side are his best friends Trent, a goth boy with an alcoholic, Jesus-obsessed mom, and the glamorous Audrey, whose past experience with bullying "as a plus-size black girl" leads her to push Adrian to do the right thing the right way. A devout sci-fi/fantasy nerd, Adrian prays to Jedi deity Obi-Wan Kenobi that he might defeat injustice, take his creativity public, stand out from the crowd, and date a cute boy, all while not getting pummeled to death by the captain of the football team.
As witty and engaging as Linn's prose is, the true hero here is his electrifying black-and-white pencil art. Adrian's custom-made superhero Graphite rockets across the page, curlicues of ribbon spiraling around him like Spider-Man's webbing, in scenes and sketches he draws to work through his fear and grief, or celebrate his love. Teen and adult readers of contemporary stories should set aside time to fall into Linn's world. Non-comic fans be warned: Linn will make you a believer. --Jaclyn Fulwood, lead librarian at Del City Public Library, Okla.