2025 Teen Graphic Novel Wrap-Up

Abandoned to live with his grandparents in rural Tennessee, fifteen-year-old Dan adjusts to working on the farm, starting high school, and being queer in a conservative community.

High school senior Carson Flynn doesn’t give a damn–about you, about school, or about her future. The only thing she cares about is jumping into mosh pits at punk shows with her best friend, Ash. But when Ash and Carson’s friendship becomes something more, a lot of complicated feelings enter the pit swinging: the unresolved grief they share over the loss of Carson’s mother, the realities of growing up queer in small-town America, and the biggest bruiser of all–what does it mean to love and be loved.

All Nitasha’s parents want is for her to be the perfect Indian daughter–something she is decidedly not. Everything she does seems to disappoint them, especially her mom. They just don’t get that she’ll never be like her doctor older brother. To make matters worse, she’s never quite felt like she belongs at school either, and lately, her best friend, Ava, and her crush, Henry, seem to be more interested in the rich new girl than in her. Alcohol takes the edge off, but when that doesn’t work, Nitasha turns to cutting. She can’t stop asking herself: Will she ever be enough for her friends or her family? Or even for herself?

Chi-Chi Ekeh has one huge problem: She keeps having crushes on rich white boys who have no idea she exists. Enter Flip Henderson, the most popular boy at school, who receives Chi-Chi’s private video proposal to go to senior prom. But when Flip rejects Chi-Chi in front of their entire class, what happens next is completely unexpected: Chi-Chi–shy nerd and scholarship student–switches bodies with Flip.

Once dubbed the Queen of Balance as her school’s top rock climber, Kirby Tan suffers an injury that sidelines her for the rest of the season. Now she’s forced to join the newspaper club for some desperately needed extra credit. Worse, she’s recruited by crystal-wearing, tarot-reading Bex Santos for her astrology-based love advice column. As Kirby reluctantly agrees to orchestrate ‘matches made in heaven’ with Bex, she begins to wonder if their own stars could be aligned.

es, Mom (Audrey) wanted to spend time with Misha. And yes, she’s never around and they don’t even live together, so this is a rare opportunity. But Audrey still thinks of Misha as her daughter, despite Misha being non-binary and trying to talk to her openly about it. Misha even tries to write how they feel in a letter, but that isn’t going well either. Then a wrong turn down a forest road leads the mother-child duo straight into the Realm of Spirits!

Fifteen-year-old Azar feels stuck. Her mom’s job forced them to move to Vermont, where Azar doesn’t know anyone. Her only friends are the next-door neighbors: an aging sci-fi writer and his nonbinary teen, Tristan, fellow misfits in the small-town community. For a while, Azar can escape her troubles by disappearing into the pages of her kindly neighbor’s epic novel, The Exiles of Overworld. But when her queerness throws her life out of balance, Azar realizes some secrets can’t be escaped forever.

Alex Wilson hasn’t been back to Indigo Harbour, the seaside village where she grew up, in years. In fact, she can barely remember anything about it. But when her grandmother dies unexpectedly, Alex will have to return to her childhood home to say goodbye.

In the not-too-distant future, most of humanity resides on its last-ditch effort at utopia: Meridian, a remote alien planet where you’re more likely to be born superhuman than left-handed. None of that is important to Oberon Afolayan. Since his mildly public breakdown, his whole life seems to be spiraling out of control–from dropping out of university to breaking up with his boyfriend, it seems like only a karmic inevitability when he wakes up one day with the ability to conjure his dreams in the real world.

Ever since she turned sixteen, Nimmi has wanted to see her mother. Though she has a loving but overprotective father and a budding relationship, she yearns to travel to Sri Lanka to confront the mother who refused to leave the island during a war, not even for Nimmi’s sake.

“At Wilberton Academy, few students are more revered than the members of the elite Wilberton Theatrical Society–a.k.a. the WTS–and no one represents that exclusive club better than Elizabeth Woodward. Breathtakingly beautiful, beloved by all, and a talented thespian, it’s no surprise she’s starring as Juliet in the WTS’s performance of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy. But when she’s found dead the morning after opening night, the whole school is thrown into chaos.

When Tabitha Laurie was growing up, a visit to Sommerland saved her belief in true love, even as her parents’ marriage was falling apart. Now she’s landed her dream job at the theme park’s prestigious summer program, where she can make magical memories for other kids, guests, and superfans just like her. All she has to do is audition for one of the coveted princess roles, and soon her dreams will come true. There’s just one problem. The heroes and heroines at Sommerland are all, well … thin. And no matter how much Tabi lives for the magic, she simply doesn’t fit the park’s idea of a princess.