Under the Moon: A Catwoman Tale provides the beginning of the Catwoman tale. Catwoman's backstory is believable and provides a strong motivation for her actions. The language in this story is more appropriate for high school or mature middle school readers. There is some abusive violence that could be disturbing for some viewers, but the violence is not gratuitous, providing motivation for her actions and attitude later in the story. I would definitely recommend this graphic novel to mature readers

The Essentials:
Publication date: May 7, 2019 by DC Ink
Advanced copy provided by Net Galley and the publisher for an honest review
Hashtags: comic, graphic_novel, young adult, tween (some swearing and violence)
My thoughts:
This is another example of using a known YA author, in this case, Lauren Myracle, to tell a familiar origin story and give it new appeal for the next generation of comic book enthusiasts, especially females. Myracle gives to Selina Kyle, aka catgirl aka future Catwoman all of the rage, stubborn pride and fierce compassion that will set the foundation for her future antihero antics. After all, the best heroes and the best antiheroes all have flaws as well as strengths. The fact that they are neither all good nor all evil is what makes these characters so appealing and timeless.

If you want more of these types of new unveilings for older characters, read Teen Titans: Raven written by YA author Kami Garcia.

Finally, I cannot say enough about Goodhart's powerful illustrations and the black and blue palette that just brings all the feels. His style of illustration stays loyal to the DC brand, but the color palette and the way his faces speak so loudly even amongst sparse text is very cool, very fresh, very contemporary.

This story had too many curses for me to feel good about recommending it to my students. It also wasn't the best written story. It does a good job getting into Selina's (Catwoman's) backstory but I wish it was better.

I was unable to open the pdf file of this novel on any of my devices no matter which program I tried to use. Unfortunately I am not able to provide a review for this novel as a result.

Potential to be a good story. Lots of triggers such as abuse and animal cruelty. It is a different twist on the Bruce Wayne:/Catwoman relationship

Under the moon: A Catwoman tale is a classic graphic novel. From bad guys, good guys, misfits and even a killer dog. What more can you ask for in a story. It's a must read.

While I am not typically a graphic novel reader, I am a superhero realm fan. This was a great book. Seeing this side of catwoman was interesting and a great perspective. Briefly seeing Bruce and possibly some other characters, was great and fun. The intro to catwoman was great and I look forward to what happens in the next one!

A wonderful, exciting graphic novel! This story is deep and dark. This was a great start to Selina Kyle's origin story. I loved seeing teenage Celina and her interactions with Bruce Wayne. Lauren Myracle made Selina a complex character with a bit of teenage vulnerability. I am quite impressed with DC Ink! I hope there are more stories to come.

Origin story of Selina, aka CatGIRL.

Lauren Myracle is on-par with her style of writing: sexy but teen appropriate. However, the “sexy” is less proactive and more “vulgar language is sexy.” I’m not familiar with the original comics, so I couldn’t tell you how close of an adaptation it is, but I can predict that the style is very “on” for Myracle,s target audience. Despite this, I am curious as to whether or not this will get any traction since Marvel is currently In and DC isn’t so much. Plus, Catgirl doesn’t have a movie coming out soon, so there isn’t that link to help boost the Circ rates of this graphic novel. I did love the illustrations, though.

I was EXTREMELY disappointed with this book. The plotline fell flat and the characters weren't likable. The story didn't work for the Catwoman I know and love. I have always enjoyed Lauren Myracle's books, but this one left me cold.

Interesting that two books are coming out about Catwoman within a year of each other (Sarah J. Maas' book in 2018, this in 2019), especially since they differ considerably. Overall, I really liked this. I would suggest it for older teens (15 or 16+) due to some of the language and actions. And I know Catwoman didn't have a happy backstory, no matter what version you go with - but some sort of trigger warning wouldn't go amiss.. abuse, animal abuse, self harm, and.. well, the weird sort-of-dog eating people?

This was good, but just felt like the beginning of something. I'd like to see where Lauren Myracle would take this character from here, but I think this run of DC heroines is all about their beginnings rather than their futures.

This is one of the most fun graphic novels I've read in a long time! Having said that, there are sad elements to this Catwoman origin story. Selena Kyle is abused by her mother's live-in boyfriend and doesn't have many friends at school. She does know Bruce Wayne, the cool kid at school, who is kind to her despite their different social statuses. When things go terribly wrong at home, Selena runs away and hones her criminal skills. She also learns parkour, which helps her learn some cat-like moves, which she will later become so famous for.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this graphic novel and would recommend it to anyone looking for a fun adventure!

A very interesting story that was not able to sustain my attention for the totality of the narrative. An admirable attempt.

I don’t read many graphic novels because my brain works with text better than pictures. I’ve never “loved” a graphic novel, but this is my favorite so far. Bear in mind, I’ve read maybe five graphic novels….

The tale is divided into three parts: The Dark, The Light, and Under the Bright. We begin learning what Selina’s life is like at home. Her mother is incapable of dating a man of worth. She quits bringing different men home and chooses one, Darnell, who is abusive. He has not respect for Selina or her mother, and he beats both of them. Selina has few friends at school; she used to be friends with Bruce Wayne, but they don’t talk anymore. Mostly, they are in different circles. They reconnect just when Selina’s life plummets. Darnell does a horrible act that Selina cannot forgive and leaves home.

Homeless, Selina realizes that food, shelter, clothing, and bathing are truly basic needs. She eventually finds a friend who teaches her some pretty useful moves. Ojo invites Selina to hang with his friends who are rather unusual themselves. This little gang have plans, which complicates Selina’s life but in many way, it’s a good complication. They become a bit like family with Selina (now called Catgirl) taking care of Rosie. When they make plans to steal a book, the plan falls apart. The subsequent action leads to a abrupt ending, making you want to read the next issue/novel.

I really did enjoy the story and the art. The novel doesn’t publish until May of 2019, but I am ordering it.

I love that DC is coming out will all of these graphic novels for middle schoolers to dive into and get reading. The story is told with great pictures and the superheroes origins are brought to life through the pictures.

I really enjoyed this one! I normally don't read a lot of graphic novels, but this one caught my eye since Runaways has been very popular with students this year. They will like this one too!

This is an all to familiar scenario where a single mom chooses a boyfriend over her child. Selena’s mother has a string of boyfriends who stay a while, then move on. Selina now 14 is just an annoying insect to them. Until she brings in Darnell who stays.
Darnell is mean to Selina and abusive to her and cruel animals. Since her mom has chosen Darnell over her, Selina moves to the street. This marks her transformation to Catwoman. I found the story of Catwoman to be a bit choppy but her character was endearing to me. The illustrations all drawn in shades of blue were striking and felt cold which is the tone of the book.
I feel we shall hear more about the adventures of a Catwoman.

I highly enjoyed this DC Ink graphic novel. More than just a book that explores the early beginnings of a superhero, this graphic novel explores issues that I feel that modern teens deal with and will not have a difficult time connecting with it. Beautiful artwork and remarkable message that tugs at the heartstrings, this book will be a defnite favorite read with teens this year.

Soon-to-be published in May 2019 by DC Ink, the 208 page graphic novel Under the Moon is definitely not at all for kids below the high school age.. It was very dark. It is about Selina Kyle (the fifteen-year-old Catwoman) and how she grew up and tried to stay with a group and felt the grief that goes with it.
It was hard to figure out how I felt about this whole book. As I am not a "comics" kind of person and am not really into "superheroes," I virtually knew nothing about Catwoman, Selina Kyle or otherwise. So, I was sort of surprised at the amount of, shall we say, no-no words and the many f-bombs that I saw. The violence of the first part of the book was not fun to read, nor to see, but if we skip forward a bit to the whole scene where Selina is defending her gay friend, it was not fun. I think it was fine that she was defending her friend, but the graphic language used in the scene was very offensive and I had to stop about 5 sentences into that scene because I was cringing too much. But the worst bit to me was the cold-blooded murder of an adorable cat. It was just too much. I was biased to the negative after that.
Then the story picked up a bit and became a little more interesting, and even little Rosie's very dark history was tolerable. The rest of the story was better but still dark-ish. Still, the artist's drawings were very good and I enjoyed looking at (most) of them.
I received this graphic novel as an e-ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

An amazing and realistic origin story for Selena Kyle (AKA Catwoman). Selena is a young teen living in an abusive household that learns what it means to be strong and stand on her own.