Book Summary and Reviews of The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag

The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag

The Deep Dark

A Graphic Novel

by Molly Knox Ostertag

  • Critics' Consensus (6):
  • Published:
  • Jun 2024, 480 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

From Molly Knox Ostertag, writer-illustrator of the New York Times and ABA Indie bestselling The Witch Bo trilogy and The Girl from the Sea, comes a darkly beautiful story of identity, family, love, loss, and magic.

Everyone has secrets. Mags's has teeth.

Magdalena Herrera is about to graduate high school, but she already feels like an adult with serious responsibilities: caring for her ailing grandmother; working a part-time job; clandestine makeouts with a girl who has a boyfriend. And then there's her secret, which pulls her into the basement each night, drains her of energy, and leaves her bleeding. A secret that could hurt and even kill if it ever got out ― like it did once before.

So Mags keeps her head down, isolated in her small desert community. That is, until her childhood friend Nessa comes back to town, bringing vivid memories of the past, an intoxicating glimpse of the future, and a secret of her own. Mags won't get attached, of course. She's always been strong enough to survive without anyone's help.

But when the darkness starts to close in on them both, Mags will have to drag her secret into the daylight, and choose between risking everything ... or having nothing left to lose.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"An optimistic message of acceptance and love that insists that the parts of ourselves we don't like … should be cared for at all costs. … Spellbinding." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Pairing measured pacing, dynamic paneling, robust dialogue, and abundantly realized main and supporting characters, Ostertag delivers an expansive triumph—her best yet—to examine issues of grief, identity, intergenerational trauma, and reconnection." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

This information about The Deep Dark was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Molly Knox Ostertag

Molly Knox Ostertag is the acclaimed ABA Indie and New York Times bestselling graphic novel author-illustrator of The Girl from the Sea and the Witch Boy trilogy: The Witch Boy, The Hidden Witch, and The Midwinter Witch, as well as a writer for animation. A graduate of the School of Visual Arts, Molly was featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30: Media list in 2020. She's married to fellow writer and artist ND Stevenson, and they live in Los Angeles with two cats and a very cuddly dog.

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