Roar: A Star in the Abyss Vol. 1 by Ai Okaue

After Misato's parents are killed in a house fire a woman arrives claiming to be her real mother and takes her to Tokyo. From the moment she arrives her "mother" and new "sister" Ayane begin to bully her. Misato is never allowed to even leave the house and both girls seem hell-bent on ensuring that Misato is miserable. One day after the family leaves Misato decides that she is going to run away, she packs a bag and goes to leave but finds a young boy she's never seen before in a room all by himself, she introduces herself and discovers that she has also had a "new brother" this whole time. Since he is disabled Yoshiki has been treated the same way as Misato has been by the women of the house and the two of them become fast friends bonding over stories of an outside world denied to them. As the two of them grow yearning to get away from their prison their "mother" and their "sister's" obsession with destroying their lives becomes almost unbearable and when Misato discovers she's been lied to the whole time she'll need to choose to leave Yoshiki behind or escape her long nightmare. 

This was an excellent start to a promising mystery series! Misato is a wonderful character who even through years of abuse still has a heart of gold. Her sister and her mom are sociopaths and whatever especially her "mother's" motivation is to abuse both Misato and Yoshiki the way she seems to be rooted in some sort of jealousy and omg do I hope both her and her daughter end up absolutely miserable for the rest of their lives by the end of this. They are truly awful. However, her "dad" maybe even worse as he clearly knows what's going on and does absolutely nothing about it. Basically, the only people in this whole house who shouldn't be in prison are Yoshiki, Misato, and the maid. 

The mystery side of this is great as well, we are given just enough backstory on both Misto's life and how she is connected to her new "family" to make this immediately intriguing. The mom seems to be motivated by some sort of jealousy in regards to her husband's connection to be Misato but that is genuinely a vague guess from the little clues we are given. Misato being a naturally talented actress is clearly going to play a large role in the entire thing but how and why I have no clue, and I'd say its fairly obvious her actual parents were murdered. So there's a lot going on here but in a good way. There's a lot of knots in a thread that all goes back to Misato. 

Can't end this without mentioning the art though as it is absolutely amazing! The facial expressions for each of the characters are truly well done, which since acting is going to play a role here I find that to be necessary to really drive home the emotions of each scene. 

Highly recommend if you're a fan of mysteries!

As always thanks to Netgally and Kodansha Comics for the eArc!