Graphic Novel Review - 'The Girl from the Sea' by Molly Knox Ostertag

An adorable, wonderful graphic novel. It's fantasy and contemporary coming-of-age, a winning amalgamation.

'The Girl from the Sea' is an LBGTQ retelling of the mythology of selkies (I don't come across enough of those in the media, which is a shame, because they should be given as much attention as mermaids and unicorns). There are not just seal girls and baby seals here to entice you.

Morgan Kwon is an ordinary teenage girl who is into fashion, lives by the seaside, and has a close-knit group of girl friends. Except she is far from happy and content: there's her parents' divorce, her younger brother acting out, and she is drifting apart from her friends and family, due to a secret. A secret she fears sets her apart from her "normal" best friends, and makes her too "weird". A secret she plans to reveal years down the line when she is considerably freer and more independent; and far away from her depressing and stifling old life and into a new one where no one knows her, and where she feels comfortable being her full self.

Then those plans are wrecked when a mysterious selkie, Keltie, who'd appeared once before in Morgan's childhood, returns to save her life - to save her from drowning, in more ways than one.

Morgan is reluctant to know the wide-eyed, childlike and optimistic Keltie, and to believe that she really is a selkie. But soon, the two fall head over heels in love with each other, and spend nearly all of their time together, secretly. Morgan keeps Keltie's bubble-and-moonlight-woven sealskin to herself, and she feels she can finally be herself and happy.

But is avoiding the people in her "realer" and human life, who do love her, what she wants? What she needs? Is changing her plans, revealing her secret - coming out of the closet - prematurely, the way forward for her after all, to show that her family and friends still love and support her no matter what?

Keltie has her own secret agenda, too, of the environmental kind. But this is Morgan's story, as pure as a pearl.

Truly heartfelt, heartwrenching, and so darn emotional; ringing true for most teenagers: that is 'The Girl from the Sea' in a seashell. The selkie mythology being used as a metaphor for growing up, accepting change, accepting your true self, and letting go, is very clever and beautiful. The art is colourful, animated and gorgeous. The characters feel authentic. There's great diversity rep, as well, and not just in terms of race and sexual orientation - Keltie is hardly a skinny selkie! She's a chipper and healthy seal girl, fitting into her ethereal skins snugly!

It is a lovely and touching story, worthy of an animated film adaptation.

A lot of LBGTQ graphic novels are like that, aren't they? Especially from #ownvoices authors. I'm glad to have read quite a few of them in Pride Month. Let there be more, until they become visible and undeniable in the mainstream. It is criminal that they don't receive enough attention to warrant adaptation for mass audiences. They're fantastically told stories, needing to be told, and needing to be listened to.

And who doesn't love seals!? BABY. SEALS!?

Final Score: 4.5/5