Teen Spirit

Teen Spirit is a full-color coming-of-age graphic novel about three kids trying to figure out their place in the world while they also have to fight off the supernatural forces plaguing their town. There’s Lily, a budding medium who would rather befriend ghosts than her peers at school; Hana, the new kid in town who’s training in the family business of ghost-hunting and exorcism; and Gabe, a ghost who’s been bored hanging out in the local graveyard since his mysterious death thirteen years ago.

I’m a big big fan of coming-of-age stories, and I believe that if you’re living your life right, centered on growth, you’ll be “coming of age” your entire life. Lily, Hana, and Gabe are at the more conventional age for this kind of story, being juniors in high school (although in Gabe’s case, he’s been a junior in high school for over a decade). And they’re all coming from different different to the same place, and a big part of their story is how their worldviews expand and their possibilities for the future open up once they let these new perspectives into their lives, and I think it’s really important, no matter what age you are, to be open to change and growth in that way.

I wish I could give this book to my high school self. I often say that this book is about and for “rock-kicking teens” [rock-kicking teen, noun: A teenager at that point in life where you’re told you’re supposed to be figuring out your entire future, which ties your stomach up in anxious knots, so instead you try not to think about it and just bum around kicking rocks], of which I was one. I was a lot like Lily at the beginning of the story, and I never would have been able to imagine the person I am today. Since I can’t give this book to teen-Olivia, I’m giving it to all the kids like her.