This world-hopping adventure story for kids teaches an awesome lesson about the importance of family. Family isn't about being biologically related....it's about who you trust and who makes you feel loved and valued. Three teens go to visit their Grandma Lupe in her run-down, mysterious, old hotel. They discover a secret that sends them into several different magical fantasy worlds. Space pirates. Wizards. Aliens. This book has a little bit of everything!

I loved this story! The teens are learning how to become a newly blended family and come together to solve the mysterious predicament they find themselves in. Their Grandma Lupe is quirky and feisty, yet lovable.

The artwork is fantastic! The story is interesting and exciting, while making important points about family relationships.

Loved it! I will definitely be looking for more by this author and illustrator! Terry Blas has written stories for several familiar animated characters including Steven Universe and The Amazing World of Gumball. Claudia Aguirre's art appears in multiple graphic novels/comics including Open Earth and Kim & Kim #1.

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this graphic novel from Boom! Studios. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

A seriously fun concept for a graphic novel. I loved seeing just how crazy things were going to get with Charlotte, Olive, and Darwin. I really enjoyed this one.

I really enjoyed this book. It was full of action, adventure, family dynamics, and magic. I would recommend this to children ages 10-14 who enjoy action-packed graphic novels.

I admit, I got really reeled in when I read the first chapters. I like how Charlotte really expresses herself in comparison to her initial appearance. She knows who she is but is still struggling to fit in somewhere in her family. That's something that's shared with the rest of the cast. Most of them know who they are as people and they help the ones who need to know who they are. Others don't really know who the others are and only find out how the influence one another because they get out of their comfort zones. As for the plot, I like the idea of trying to reconnect with loved ones but the subplot of an evil world conqueror just feels like it doesn't belong. The bittersweet ending is certainly something that leaves things open. I wonder if there is more to come.

Three kids are spending their summer with their eccentric grandmother in her unusual hotel in Mexico. What starts out as a contemporary family story quickly turns into an adventurous fantasy with portals that lead to many different worlds. The artwork is beautiful. The various worlds each have their own distinct style. There's a pretty epic battle panel.

This story showcases different types of families. It's full of acceptance and diverse characters. This book kept my attention the whole time. Full of excitement. I give this book a 5/5. There's so much great going on in this story!

The ARC for this book was provided by the author via netgalley.

Amazing! From start to finish it had me intrigued. I immediately felt for Charolette, my favorite characters are most definitely the women. We never really met their father, Jorge & I already didn't care much for him but then again he didn't know the full story about what happened. I really liked Xochitl for some reason I felt like she could've had a bigger part but hopefully we'll just see more of her next time! I want to know why Brad doesn't have a beard but he's not half as bad as the others were making it out. I hope papa Justino gets better & I'd love to read the story of them getting him better! I can't wait for more adventures at hotel dare.

Hotel Dare is a good and diverse read with great artwork, family feelings, and magical adventures. I would definitely support Terry Blas and Claudia Aguirre again. However, there is too much happening in this book and I really wish the plot and characters were better developed.

Adopted siblings Olive, Darwin, and Charlotte are spending the summer with their estranged grandmother Mamá Lupe. The kids are stuck inside doing chores at her creepy hotel. However, thanks to inquisitive Charlotte who is also the newest addition to their family, the Dare children are about to have the adventure of a lifetime! Behind each hotel door, there’s a portal to a different and amazing place. Olive is transported to a world filled with bearded wizards, Darwin finds a cotton candy kingdom, and Charlotte discovers space pirates. However, when these worlds start colliding, the Dare family must save the day!

Claudia Aguirre’s art is eye-catching and detailed. Every time I look at a panel, I notice something new. I love the inclusion of Mexican culture and imagery.

This is an interesting story but it could have been a lot better. I like the well-paced plot and some twists surprised me. However, the book is bogged down with too many plotlines. There is enough potential in this book to comfortably create an excellent series. Squeezing all these stories into one book did the writing a disservice. Moreover, certain important things aren’t properly explained and this took me out of the book.

I love seeing each new world. I wanted to know much more about each place. However, these locations are underdeveloped and there isn’t enough time to understand or care about them. Although I liked following each kid on their different adventures, the storytelling and themes would have been tighter and more meaningful if the kids had explored each new world together.

I love the interesting and diverse characters! The Dare children are relatable. However, I would have liked to see more individual growth, especially from Charlotte who at first feels like she isn’t part of the family but who suddenly belongs at the end. I love mysterious and courageous Mamá Lupe. I would have liked more of her backstory. Her interactions with Xochitl also felt rushed.

However, the book has too many characters. While they are unique and memorable, they could be much better developed. The characterization is rushed and insufficient and it’s hard to connect with them.

I love the theme of family but I wish it was more organic. I wanted to see the Dare kids working together and spending time together more meaningfully. The book touches on issues of belonging in an adopted family but it is underexplored.

Hotel Dare is a great and quick read with lovely art but it could’ve been much stronger. But, I did enjoy it and it’s an easy and fun book that will appeal to kids and teens.



💀💀💀 skull masks out of 5!

We Stan diverse characters and a diverse family!
This was SUCH a great adventure from beginning to end that I could not put down.
Some things were confusing at first, but it all wrapped up really nicely.
I really want more of this series very soon! Also the artwork is definitely worth mentioning - it was absolutely electric, so colorful, and totally eye catching. Loved all of it!

When Olive, Darwin, and Charlotte are dropped off at their Mamá Lupe’s place, they are quickly put to work. Of course, cleaning the creepy old hotel their grandmother lives in is not how they expected to spend their summer. One day, Mamá Lupe tells them to continue cleaning while she’s out and gives them strict instructions not to go near her office. Ignoring her grandma, Charlotte picks the lock and explores the forbidden office with her reluctant siblings, and accidentally unlocks a magical world within the hotel.

This is such a cute and heartwarming story, but it could’ve been so much more. I think that it suffers from having too much going on at once. It has a great cast of characters, the storytelling is beautiful, the artwork is wonderful, and the story itself is great. That said, the story began to splinter down once the kids are separated into different worlds, or dimensions I guess, and it continues throughout the rest of the story as more and more gets tacked on. Unfortunately, this book reads more as a companion story to a book or series that doesn’t exist, especially because of how little we spend in two of the other worlds. It just seemed like we should’ve known these worlds already.

At its core, the story is about family, and we follow Olive, Darwin, and Charlotte, who are siblings through adoption. I love that Olive and Darwin have bonded and Darwin feels like a member of the family. However, Charlotte does not, and her feelings is what drives some of her actions, including pressuring her siblings into going into Mamá Lupe’s forbidden office. I loved watching their individual adventures, but I wish that the kids went into the different worlds together from the start. Because of how much they are separated, Charlotte finally feeling like a member of her family seems like an afterthought.

I loved the characters, but I loved Mamá Lupe the most. I would love to follow a series following her and her adventures as she searched for her husband across the different worlds. It appears to be a stand-alone story, but I will 100% be here if a book following Mamá Lupe were to come out.

Hotel Dare is a fun romp about a mixed family. A trio of children are sent to stay with their grandmother at her creepy hotel. They spend their summer trying to find out what caused a rift between members of their family. In the process, they discover something that allows them to travel to multiple worlds.

I think the art does a wonderful job with the story. It's a little more cartoony, which seems to fit the age of the characters. This allows the fantasy elements to mesh into the story a lot better. The hotel and each of the areas that the children travel to are distinctive. I love the artifacts that allow the characters to travel between these worlds and how that ties into the history of the family.

As much as these fantastical elements are part of the story, from the start it is all about family. This is something that carries throughout the book. It lends strength to the story that something that everyone can identify with is a central theme and remains important even after some of the more interesting things are introduced. Definitely would recommend.

Some intriguing choices going on in this book. We have a fair amount of Hispanic culture, with the spirit realm and the like. At the same time, we've got the isolation and cultural confusion that comes with adoption. Lots of detail in the illustrations.

Hotel Dare was truly BEAUTIFUL--and I mean that in every aspect. The illustrations are vivid and so colorful, the story is incredibly unique and fun, and the characters are diverse and original. Set in a hotel whose rooms transport entrants to fantastical worlds, the Dare siblings learn the importance of family--even adoptive family--as well as friendship and love.

There were a few things I would have liked a little more clarity on (some character history/details), but dimensional portals, family trees, diverse characters, and great Claudia Aguirre artwork check off a lot of boxes for me.

This graphic novel has gorgeous artwork that uses traditional Mexican figures and styles, but the story is a bit of a mess and very heavy-handed in its message of family unity, although it also includes chosen family with blood family. Three siblings travel to their grandmother's hotel in Mexico where they discover portals to other worlds. Each travels to a different one, making new friends who all then join together in a quest for the siblings' grandfather, who disappeared into a portal years ago and for whom their magic-using grandmother has been searching. Some of the plot lines are worthy of a telenovela, which is probably deliberate given the early reference to telenovelas in the book. With a little editing and a lighter touch on the moral of the story, this would have gotten a higher rating from me.

Hotel Dare is a heartwarming tale of adventure and family, and I really enjoyed it.

It tells the story of the siblings Olive, Darwin, and Charlotte who are going to spend the summer with their grandma, Mama Lupe. They're expecting it to be boring, but what starts as a chore, turns into a journey into different worlds after they stumble upon a magical Aztec brooch.

The different characters they encounter there all help them come to important realizations about accepting who you are and your differences, loving yourself and loving your family, no matter who they are or how you met. As Mila, the friendly space pirate says: "If you have people who love you, treasure them, however you got them. And not juts your blood kin. Family are people who treat you like family. Even when it's difficult and there's problems. Especially then."

Overall, Hotel Dare is a fun, fantastical journey with great and important messages perfect for all ages.

“It’s not your typical family vacation when Olive, and her adopted siblings Darwin and Charlotte find themselves falling into other worlds as they explore Grandma Lupé’s strange hotel.”

Charlotte, Darwin and their newly adopted sister Olive are forced to spend their summer with their estranged Grandmother at her run down and very creepy hotel. Other than being bored out of their mind doing chores, young Charlotte isn’t taking well to her new family bonds and older sister Charlotte is dead set on figuring out why their father and grandmother’s relationship went sour. Thanks to inquisitive Charlotte, a simple dare of going into Mama Lupe’s locked office that she forbade anyone going into have them stumbling upon an incredible secret... the hotel has rooms that can transport folks to other realms, other worlds. Doing so activates a struggle across worlds older than any of the kids and unearths a family secret that is an adventure in the making.

Oh I love stories with blended families and seeing children of color in comics in nuanced and thoughtful representations is a treat. Terry Blas (Dead Weight, The Amazing World of Gumball) spins a narrative about siblings exploring not just new and exciting places like a world of magic users and also being inserted onto a pirate space ship of some kind but also exploring what family means to them and the growing pains that comes with it. I loved seeing the sprinkling of Spanish in the text bubbles throughout the book. Claudia Aguirre (Kim & Kim) is masterfully in her illustrating this tale everything from the character designs to the full paged spreads of wonderful settings from the interior of Mama Lupe’s locked office to sights from other places not near and very far away. There are layers to the eye candy with coloring that defines whole pages and moods and a lettering job that emphasizes the emotions of certain scenes.
“We’re stronger than an army, we’re family”

I wasn’t prepared for the unraveling of the plot of the family secret held by Mama Lupe that is a drama bomb as much as it is fantastic writing that emotionally made me so much more invested. There’s a cast of intriguing supporting characters of all shapes and sizes that don’t all extend to just humans that add to the richness of the story. I was so pleasantly surprised to learn that the definition of hero doesn’t just apply to boys or male figures, reconciliation is not easy but can be worked towards and fighting for your family means doing what can be thought as impossible: jumping into different worlds and stomping on your fears to what it possible.
With a satisfying, yet slightly rushed ending that wraps up a lot more plot threads then I expected,

With a satisfying, yet slightly rushed ending that wraps up a lot more plot threads then I expected, Hotel Dare is an all-new original graphic novel that delves into fantasy that is all ages appropriate and quite heartwarming. I’m glad that I took the chance and opened the door to this read that features a Mexican abuelita, space travel, weird creatures, and a diverse family that you’ll be rooting for. While Hotel Dare was a slow starter and took a minute for me to get immersed in, the plot twists helped give the book the emotionally depth that ties family and interdimensional travel together quite nicely with a bow.

Disclaimer: I have voluntarily reviewed this book after receiving a free copy from NetGalley, thank you!

I’ve seen Hotel Dare on a few Goodreads lists and one of the booktubers I watch talked about it in her video so when I see it available for request on NetGalley couldn’t believe my luck. I was super excited when I got accepted and got down to read as soon as I could.

Hotel Dare is a story about three adopted siblings, Olive, Darwin and Charlotte who go to spend their vacation in their grandma’s hotel in Mexico. Olive has a secret purpose in that - she wants to learn what happened in the past that made their father and grandma stop talking to each other. In the meantime, however, they discover that doors to the rooms in the hotel lead to different worlds.

I absolutely love the idea of Hotel Dare. It reminds me of the books I’ve read when I was a kid with buildings full of mysteries and magic. Different worlds give a possibility of many different settings, each of the creative, quirky and colorful. I would love to see some more of the space pirate world and the Land of the Dead.

The characters are lovely, every single one of them unique and fun. Olive is trying her best to be a responsible older sister and keep her family together. Darwin is a little quiet and anxious but he always wants to see the best in people. Charlotte is uncertain about her place in the family and very temperamental. Mama Lupe is absolutely badass. From other characters, I absolutely loved Brad, the beardless mage, and Benjamina, the captain of the space pirates. The relationships between the characters were heartwarming and wholesome with quirky banter.

I could go on about art style in this comic for ages. It’s so beautiful, vibrant and colorful. Each character is easily distinguishable from the others. The backgrounds are detailed and create a wonderful atmosphere. Just looking at the pages makes you want to be there with the characters and explore those fascinating new worlds.

In conclusion, Hotel Dare is a wonderful read with a cast of diverse characters and beautiful graphics. It’s a story about finding one’s place in the world and how family doesn’t end with blood. I’m sure many teenage readers would see themselves in the characters but it’s also a great read for older graphic novel enthusiasts. I personally will keep an eye for the next volumes if there ever will be any.

4/5

This is such a fun read. It's perfect for middle grade and kids who don't always enjoy reading.

The story is easy to follow and captivating enough to keep you reading. As a Spanish student, I enjoyed that there was some relatively simple Spanish included in the comic.
I liked the art style and the colors used, and the fact that family was most important, whether that's family you find along your journey, or the family you've born into.

The first thing I noticed upon starting this graphic novel was the artwork worthy of an animated television series. The characters, backgrounds, colors, all vividly come to life on the page - even more so once you are start reading, and realize how inclusive the book is. Race, family, adoption, the LGBTQ+ community, spirituality, ageism, all and more are touched upon in this story of three siblings made a family via adoption - Olive, Darwin, and Charlotte - who are all sent to live for the summer with their estranged grandma who owns and runs the Hotel Dare (and could use their help in cleaning and fixing it up). But chores grow old fast, and one day youngest sister Charlotte gets inquisitive, leading her siblings into a private office while Grandma's out ... a move that leads to each kid, as he or she is cleaning a room that morning, to discover a portal into different worlds where Charlotte finds new purpose, Olive helps a fledgling wizard, and Darwin meets a blob-like friend. But when Charlotte - always the loner, though her outward toughness hides a much softer center - decides to stay behind permanently in her world, Olive and Darwin can only keep things secret from Grandma for so long before learning that the three worlds they've all visited are now on a collision course with each other - and that Grandma has some long-held secrets, herself, that may threaten them all. Hotel Dare is inventive and colorful storytelling (am totally in love with the sassy grandma, who I think deserves her own TV series) that builds to a very busy final battle between good guys and bad - "busy" also being the one negative I could hold against the book. Hotel Dare is very heavy on action, characters and even dialogue that, at times, makes for some convoluted storytelling; a lot of ideas and storylines and people/creatures fill these pages, which works on one level because the characters are well-written and well-drawn, though on another level may make you double back a page or two at times, to remind yourself or where you are and whose story you are on. And though that may occasionally make it feel like a novel's worth of story packed into a graphic novel's page count, Hotel Dare remains a boisterous, exciting tale of family - whether a family by blood or love or circumstance - and how strong those family ties can be. 3.5/5 stars

NOTE: I received a free ARC of this title from NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.

Thrilling story about family, loyalty, and interdimensional travel. I loved all of the characters and can't wait to learn more about them. The ways the different worlds worked with the individual family members that encountered them was really smart. The plot kept me guessing.