Review: Unfamiliar

Author/Artist: Haley Newsome
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Released: December 6, 2022
Received: NetGalley

If you’ve spent time on Tapas, you’ve probably already spotted this witchy read. Unfamiliar is a fun series written and illustrated by Haley Newsome. It’s a series I’ve been following for a while now on Tapas, but when I saw it was getting a graphic novel, I knew I had to re-read and support it!

Planchette is a young kitchen witch setting out on her own for the first time. While she can spell up all the pizza she wants, she otherwise feels wildly unprepared for the future. More accurately, she doesn’t feel equipped to deal with her haunted house.

Thankfully, Planchette is far from the only witch or magical being in town, and this haunted house adventure is precisely what she needs to go out into the world and make some new friends. So that is what she’ll do.

Unfamiliar is by far one of my favorite series on Tapas at the moment (seriously, if you’re not reading it, you should go and check it out! It’s free!). So I was absolutely tickled when I learned about this graphic novel.

To say that this graphic novel is charming would be an understatement. Planchette and all her newly made friends have so much personality – not to mention backstory. We have a cursed girl, a bird girl, and a shy siren. Plus, a sassy familiar. What more could you ask for? Oh right! Ghosts! There are plenty of those too.

If you love enchanting (pun intended) stories with complex and cute characters, Unfamiliar is the tale for you. Because it is based on an online comic series, the plot arcs are less sequential and brief, with a few exceptions. This helps make it a lighter read. Think a magical slice-of-life story, and you’re pretty close.

Thanks to Andrews McMeel Publishing and #NetGalley for making this book available for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Quirky Cat’s Fat Stacks | Quirky Cat’s Comics | The Book Review Crew | Monkeys Fighting Robots | Storygraph | Bookhype | Bookstagram | Twitter | Tumblr | Reedsy