Jade Evergreen Polybius by Kara Buchanan


After Jade Evergreen hears the Maidensong she summons the courage to tell her parents what she's always known; that she's a girl. Well, she's a magical girl but she really can't tell her parents that part. Wanting to be as supportive as they can her family packs up and moves to Portland, OR where Jade can start fresh as a girl. This would be great except during a fight with a magical deck of tarot cards her classmate Catherine who just happens to be a journalist discovers all of Jade's secrets and blackmails Jade into letting her tag along on her supernatural battles. So far the enemies the girls have seen Jade come up against have been relatively easy for her to take down, but, after students across Portland start disappearing Jade realizes that this new enemy is on a whole other level. Will she have the strength and the courage to save her classmates before it's too late? 

I'd like the next book now! Hooked from page one, hell the first sentence! Jade Evergreen is such a fantastic character and this is such a wonderful nod to older magical girl anime that it was like I was fourteen again! Everything about this had such a wonderful nostalgic feeling that I ended up reading it in like 30 minutes, 45 tops. 

What I loved the most about this though is I think this novella really demonstrates Buchanan's gift of writing. Magica Riot had a more young adult feel to it, the characters are in their early twenties, they've gone through some stuff, and they've got baggage. Jade Evergreen is *clearly* a teenager, she's worrying about teenage things while fighting interdimensional monsters. It is a wonderfully, damn near perfect middle-grade read. And to be able to pivot from Magica Riot's more mature writing to something like this after only writing one full-length novel is something you simply don't see very often. 

I genuinely can't recommend this series enough, and what's great about this novella is you don't have to read Magica Riot first to read this one. Although I can't imagine why you wouldn't have read Magica Riot yet! Seriously go read this absolutely beautiful celebration of not just gender identity but simply the joy and the power of being yourself whatever that may look like. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Inheriting Her Ghosts by S.H. Cooper

The Ghost Princess by M. Walsh

The Jinxed Pirate by M. Walsh