I really enjoyed Mooncakes. The plot was addictive, the pacing was perfect, it has LGBTQ+ characters and representation and MAGIC. What's not to enjoy? The illustrations are vibrant and beautiful. I really enjoyed this!

This book was super cute and just what I needed. I loved the art and the aesthetic of this graphic novel. I enjoyed the magical world mixed with the muggle world it was set in. The setting made the story seem more relatable. The relationships are so pure and sweet. Overall an enjoyable read.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Wow this was my first arc ever and I’m really grateful. Mooncakes is just a cute, light and sweet graphic novel and I loved it. I think since I read it on my kindle I miss a lot of the experience but I can’t wait to get the final copy on my hands.
This book has a lot of diversity and good representation which is always a plus.
We follow two teenagers , Nova and Tom when they got reunited years later in the same town where they grew up. Nova is a teenager witch who lives with her nanas and Tom is a werewolf who always dreamed to come back to town after leaving and it’s a non binary character. They dreamed to come back to town and run away from their mom and awful step dad and they are trying to stop this demon.
The story is quite simple but interesting and I love Tatyana , nova’s bff bc she is funny and relatable but also loyal to her. I also really like the relationship between nova and her nanas.
If you are looking for a cute, dearing and light graphic novel mooncakes is for you and it comes out on October.
Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an arc of this book

Stuck for something to read, I picked up this graphic novel and fell in love. A whimsical YA tale of a witch and a non-binary werewolf, up against a mysterious force in the woods. Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu is adorable, and the graphic novel equivalent of a cuddly blanket and a mug of tea. While it is not the deepest story, it is captivating, and embraces its format and audience. This is the perfect thing to read while stuck in quarantine!

A big thank you to NetGalley and OniPress for providing me an advanced reader’s copy of “Mooncakes“.

Firstly, I loved the diversity in these books! Nova is a queer, hard-of-hearing witch, while Tam is a non-binary werewolf. Also, both of Nova’s grandmothers are also in a relationship! I loved Nova’s interactions with her grandmothers, and her relationship with Tam as well.

The story is very endearing and makes you fuzzy and warm all over. The illustrations by Wendy Xu are wonderful and compliment the story so well. Moreover, I loved the cute mystical creatures from the woods and wanted to see more of them! Furthermore, there are some quirky characters like the cousin with the pigeon head, who was hilarious! As I received an advanced copy of the book, the pages towards the end were not colored. I am interested to pick up this book after all the final revisions and see how it turns out.

There are a few minor things which I felt could have been better. For example, I would have liked to the backstory between Tam and their parents. I was also a bit confused as to what the cult was trying to achieve by getting rid of Tam, and there is no motive mentioned. The plot also seems to change directions midway. For instance, the first half seems to focus mainly on the ghost horse in the woods, but in the second half, it completely shifts focus to the cult. While I am ok with this, I felt like the shift of focus between the two came out of nowhere and felt very rushed towards the end.

But overall, “Mooncakes” is a charming graphic novel if you are in the mood to read about diversity, love and magic!

This was such a cute and heartwarming read! The artwork is beautiful, the worldbuilding is incredible and I think I fell in love with all of the characters. It was also full of queerness and seeing they/them pronouns used and respected made me feel so happy. I think it's the first time I've read a graphic novel with a non-binary character. Definitely going to keep an eye out for future works by this artist.

I cannot wait to buy this cute story and display it on my shelf. This was an all inclusive love story that I could not get enough of.

It's a very cute idea, and I loved the art style, but the story just didn't really give me anything... I'm sure others would enjoy this, but it simply wasn't for me

Mooncakes was a fantastic read for me, who is quite new to graphic novels. I enjoyed the story and the accompanying art a lot, they worked together perfectly in creating the magical world it was intended to portray. I loved loved loved the characters, and of course, especially Nova and Tam, but also Tatyana, the grandmothers and all the magical creatures, which were beautifully designed. Nova was my personal favourite - smart, kind, brave, loving, and spirited. She was all I could ever wish for from a main character - relatable and inspiring, someone that you can identify with and at the same time root for and fangirl over. Plus the whole romance in this book was next level - so authentic and lovely, I could watch it unfold in front of my eyes forever. I am sure a lot of people will be able to identify with these diverse and highly individualised set of characters. The grandmothers were also super cute and brave and amazing, and reminded my of my own .Overall, I loved all the fantasy elements and witchy vibes, and they made me want to be a witch too (again, after Harry Potter). I wish I would see more from this world that Wendy Xu and Suzanne Walker created. I would read countless volumes about their adventures and gladly watch their personal development, especially at such important points in the characters’ lives. Many thanks to NetGalley and the authors for providing me with the opportunity to read this wonderful story.

Thank you to Netgalley and publisher for release of this review copy!

I was so excited when I got this! Everyone was talking about it and when I was given this on NetGalley my little heart squealed!

This was so cute!!! I loved the way Suzanne Walker filled this with so much cuteness. I loved the art work! When you include a bookshop and magic in one book, you have a winner!!!

I want to thank Suzanne Walker, Oni Press and NetGalley for this awesome graphic novel.

One of my favourite books in 2019! I read this book as part of Dewey's Readathon and it was a beautiful experience.

It has great characters, querness, fantasy, mushyness and epicness!

This is one of those amazing graphic novels you can't miss, so please go and read this as fast as you can!

This was an enjoyable read for me. The illustration is remarkable and the story is soft, remarkable, sweet, and filled with magical moments! I also like the fact that there are so much representation and diversity in this book. I can't recommend this enough! It is a perfect read for not just October but any season!

Thanks to the publishers for sharing this one.. I thought I'd left feedback already, but apparently not. It's a lovely, sweet story with beautiful art. My full review appears on Weekend Notes.

Mooncakes by Wendy Xu and Suzanne Walker

*I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review*

This graphic novel was such a cute read, and the artwork was amazing and so beautifully drawn. It was recommended to me everywhere before I received an ARC and finally got around to reading it, and I’m so glad I did. It’s definitely one I will be rereading.

Nova is a teen from a family of witches who helps her grandmothers run their magical bookshop. When she goes to investigate strange lights and a white wolf sighting in the forest, she runs into Tam, her childhood best friend (and werewolf) and helps them investigate the reason why they’re on their own in the forest trying to fight a demon. Their latent feelings for each other are rekindled along the way in this enchanting tale of self-discovery.

I had an ARC so I did not have all of the full-colour artwork, but it is amazing. The artwork really gave the book a cozy, autumn feel, which combined with the witchy essence of the story, made the whole thing feel perfect for October.

I loved everything about this book. The characters and relationships were brilliantly written, and the representation was great – both main characters are Chinese-American and queer, and Nova has two grandmas in a relationship with each other. Tam uses they/them pronouns (and even corrects other characters) and the other characters are so respectful of them. Nova herself has hearing aids, and this is talked a lot about throughout the story. The family dynamic and friendships are powerful and are a vital part of the novel. Everything about it was incredibly heartwarming and cute.

The storyline is fairly simple and easy to follow, but it worked. No complicated plots, just a feel-good graphic novel with a straight forward plot and an adorable romance.

A perfectly witchy read with amazing representation, beautiful artwork, and adorable characters. I would definitely recommend this to all my reader friends. I devoured it in one sitting (graphic novels are such quick reads!) and I really hope we get more following Nova’s apprenticeship and the relationship between Nova and Tam. Overall, this is the perfect fall/Halloween read, and in my opinion, makes a pretty good valentine's day read too.

The story is really interesting, but I felt it needed a bigger book (or books) to be fully explored. Everything happened too fast with no time for explanations on the magic system, family dynamics, and past friendships. A lot of the character's past had to be told instead of shown because there weren't enough pages to explore both the past and the present. This made it hard to connect with the characters and enjoy their relationship. Despite that, it has great representation and diversity from sexuality to pronouns and even disabilities.
The art style is good but not as detailed as I enjoy. Some pages were beautiful, colourful, and detailed while others were too simplified for my liking.

3 ⭐
If I'm honest, I don't really know where to start. But, I guess I should always start with the positives so here they are:
- this would be a good (and quick) Halloween read
- There's not much dialogue so this is a fast read
- Very diverse (Chinese-American main characters, both queer, Nova is HoH, Tam is Non-binary, Nova has two grandmas)
- An interesting take on werewolves in connection to magic.

The negatives:
- I wasn't a fan of the HoH rep, which I feel bad about but, that's the truth. I generally steer away from deaf/hoh rep because it's hardly ever ownvoices which means it's usually not very good, and in this case, I just wasn't a fan.
I appreciated Nova having hearing aids and complaining about having to take them off to answer the phone, but that's about it. There was no signing (in any capacity), there were no hand gestures or lip-reading and that felt really really weird to me. Basically, my point is this, if you want to have a deaf character they need to actually be deaf THE WHOLE TIME. You can't just slap some hearing aids on them and problem fixed! Hearing aids do not equal being able to hear everything.

Other than this reading really false for me, Mooncakes came across as really underdeveloped to me (no context for relationships, characters, world-building etc.) and seemed to just rely on rep and witchcraft to pull in readers. That being said, I've found that's often the way with first volumes of non-hero comics. But, if this is a standalone then my point still stands and it needed to be better developed in terms of pretty much everything, it jsut felt very half-baked to me.

This book was so cute!!! My rating is more of a 3.5-star rating than a 3-star rating. The art was really good, and the plot was super cute!

Mooncakes has the best combination of witches, werewolves, bookstores, and baking! I know that this doesn't sound like a combination that you need. But trust me, it is. Nova and Tam are *so cute*! And I just wish that we could have had MORE of them.

That is my only criticism. I wish that there was a bit more of a backstory or some more worldbuilding? I know that it's hard when writing a graphic novel, since they tend to be shorter than the average book. But I liked the world so much, that I kind of wish I could have seen more of it!

3.5* stars

This graphic novel was definitely enjoyable and had great artwork, but it wasn't anything spectacular or a new favorite of mine. The plot was intriguing and I wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on; the characters were all so sweet and I loved their dynamics; but overall. I just wasn't super invested.

So I had been hearing a lot about this book last year. I honestly didn't know what it was about but I decided I would give it a chance because of all the great reviews. I tried reading it now on Netgalley but I forgot what happened but ended up waiting for it to come out. I finally got my hands on it and here are my thoughts.

So I have to say I was a little off with what I thought this was about. I really thought the book had to do with baking since they have the characters holding food on the cover and then on the back there is a tray of food on the back. So I was excited about that. I was mistaken. If though the story was not about them baking it was still really enjoyable. I thought it was such a fun read. I am very into witch stories. One of my favorite movies growing up was The Craft so anything that involves witches I am here for. I love how you had the main character who was a witch she was deaf. I don't see a lot of deaf representation in books so I don't know how accurate it was but it was nice to see that added. I also love her grandmas are also witches and they are always there to help her out. Plus they run a bookstore that sells magic books which I thought was so cool.

Another thing I enjoyed was the artwork. It reminded me a bit of The Tea Dragon Society. Only a little when they showed the creatures that were in the woods. I thought the art was nice and was well done. If I like the artwork I feel there is more of a chance of me enjoying the story a lot more.

The only thing that I was a little iffy about was the romance. The two characters are reunited after being a part for a couple of years. They use to have a thing for each other. Right away it's like pretty fast paced but they are back to where they were. I guess I wanted a little bit more build up to this. I mean at the same time I haven't been in a situation. I did just read a story where something similar happened and even though there was connection there both of the characters had changed with their time apart. So I think that's why I am a bit iffy about the whole thing.

Overall it was a great story. It had a lot of different representation. It was an enjoyable witchy read. I hope to read more stories about witches in 2020 because I really forgot how much I enjoy them. I feel if you're into witches with some long lost romance, you'll probably like this read. Plus it's cool just to check out for the artwork.

*Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read this early to give my honest opinion.* I am happy I ended up waiting for the finished copy which I got from my library.

Mooncakes is the story of two young people figuring out their places in their worlds and with their connections to magic. Their relationships – with the ones around them and each other – fuel the emotional core of this whimsical, down-to-earth, LGBTQ+ narrative.

I was delighted by Mooncakes. First, the art is so spot-on for the tone of the story – in some ways it is cute and colourful, but there are some hard, emotional moments and magic-fueled fights that don’t feel out of place in the chosen style. The characters are designed uniquely, no two overly alike and all have distinct personalities.

The core strength of the narrative is in the inter-personal relationships of the characters. In a lot of ways, Mooncakes is a quiet narrative – it talks about and explores family dynamics, childhood crushes, small-town living, and more internal struggles like anxiety (both in the ‘worrying’ sense and in the ‘mental health’ sense). All these aspects are informed by and directly related to LGBTQ+ people. One of the two main characters has been raised by her two married grandmothers, and the other is non-binary. To its foundation, this is an LGBTQ+ story.

Mooncakes is the kind of story I wish I had when I was fifteen, and twenty-something year old me is delighted to be able to read it. It’s the kind of beautiful, normalizing story the LGBTQ+ community deserves – and it’s fun, adventurous, and engaging to boot.

If you’re looking for something with a whole lot of heart, great characters, and an interesting small-town magical adventure plot, then you need to pick up Mooncakes.