The Deep & Dark Blue: A Magical Coming Out Tale [MG Review]

After a terrible political coup usurps their noble house, Hawke and Grayson flee to stay alive and assume new identities, Hanna and Grayce. Desperation and chance lead them to the Communion of Blue, an order of magical women who spin the threads of reality to their will. As the twins learn more about the Communion, and themselves, they begin to hatch a plan to avenge their family and retake their royal home.While Hawke wants to return to his old life, Grayce struggles to keep the threads of her new life from unraveling, and realizes she wants to stay in the one place that will allow her to finally live as a girl.

Goodreads

Review ✍🏻

A cute and mostly harmless read (no transphobia!), The Deep & Dark Blue is essentially a short story about a young trans girl’s coming out. Yes, it is set in a fantasy world. The characteristics of that world facilitate Grayce’s transition. It’s very sweet that Grayce embraces her identity while she’s ‘hiding’ in a supportive order of girls and women. But the story is primarily about being trans rather than about having a fantasy adventure. This is not a negative comment! Just an observation that isn’t the type of fantasy where the main character’s identity is incidental to the story.

The world building is spread thinner than I prefer. The summary above pretty much covers everything. IMO, if you can summarize everything that makes a fantasy story in the blurb, then the worldbuilding is too thin. The Deep & Dark Blue‘s strength is Grayce’s character, not its fantasy narrative. I’m definitely happy to see trans girl representation in a middle grade fantasy graphic novel. It’s a start. I’ll be keeping my eye out for more like it, for stories that go beyond coming out and that embrace secondary world storytelling.

A note on the art: I love the blue, pink, and purple tones of the cover. But you know what’s always a bummer when it comes to comics and graphic novels? When the cover is more appealing than the interior art. I’m not sure whether it’s the art or the printing that seems to be poor quality. The outlines often appear fuzzy or blurred. I guess that could be on purpose, but to me, it just looks poorly printed. Otherwise, the art is fairly simple and the cover represents the insides well (I say, contradicting what I wrote three sentences ago…).

The Bottom Line 💭

The Deep & Dark Blue offers a unique take on a coming out story by presenting it in a form (graphic novel) and genre (fantasy) for an audience (middle grade) that hasn’t been done before.

(I know that sentence doesn’t quite make sense, but I gave up trying to piece it together lol)

Further Reading

🍂 Author website
🍂 Interview @ The Beat
🍂 Reviews: Holly @ Hollibrary Books, Alex @ Almost, Almost
🍂 Related: I reviewed another middle grade fantasy graphic novel earlier this year: This Was Our Pact.

What’s your favourite middle grade graphic novel?