Written by Chris Gooch (2024)
(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)
This past fall, I started looking for more standalone graphic novels at the library, both to read and to find examples of artwork that I could show in my Graphic Novel class.
Looking at covers and looking for anything different, I saw the cover of In Utero. Looked interesting. For a moment, I thought the book was going to be in 3-D and that I would need special glasses for it, but a quick flip of the pages informed me otherwise.
In Utero is an Australian YA graphic novel. It purportedly blends coming-of-age, sci-fi, and horror.
There's a bizarre setup where a young girl, Hailey, is dropped off at a day care program which is situated inside a deserted, run-down mall. Years earlier, there had been an "incident" in Australia, and the mall has been closed for a long time. Hailey wanders off when she meets an older teen, Jen, who isn't what she seems to be. They explored the mall, down to a flooded parking level where there is a giant egg. Jen is actually the egg, or rather, a projection of what is growing inside the egg.
At the same time, other kids have explored and found some odd kind of life forms that react to the them, much like a toy or a puppy might. When these things are discovered, Hazmat teams arrive to check all the children and staff, and to gather up the specimens. They make two mistakes: first, putting all the creatures together, and second, thinking that the canisters will contain whatever happens when there's a critical mass of these creatures.
A giant monster forms and starts looking for Jen, while authorities are looking for Hailey as well. It's up to Haily to save Jen and everyone else.
The book was mildly horrific, since it's YA. It had an interesting color palette, being mostly shades of blue, except for when it was primarily red.
It wasn't the greatest thing, or even overly enjoyable, but I was happy to read it. It was definitely something else. And I think I took a few photos of pages that I might be able to use next year if they give me the same class again.
If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.
