bookheaven | Nothing Special, Vol. 1: Through the Elder Woods (Reply)

Nothing Special, Vol. 1: Through the Elder Woods by Katie Cook

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This weighty volume contains the first complete arc of the Nothing Special webtoon. And it starts off very sweetly with an air of innocence. Callie, being raised by her father, has lived life split between the human world and the fantasy one (where he runs a magic antique/junk shop). Of her mother, Callie knows very little. All she knows is she is forbidden to go past the gate of the fantasy world town.

In the human world, Callie runs into Declan, a classmate who forces herself to see herself in another way. To her eyes she's nothing special, sort of an outcast. But when she sees herself through his eyes, Callie is the cool, aloof girl and Declan has a mad crush on her.

But then on her seventeenth birthday, Callie's father disappears and she and Declan go into the fantasy world after him because, like Callie, Declan can see things he can't explain (starting with his own seventeenth birthday) Like Callie, he has roots in the fantasy world and together they start tracking her father using a pendant spelled to find family.

One of the things both teens can do is see these spirits, many of them the spirits of plants who turn out far more sentient than one would assume a radish is. However, it is a radish spirit who appoints himself Callie's protector (and is quite jealous of Declan). Among the various denizens of the realm, they meet up with a young man around their age, a demon Lasser the Lesser, the 87th son of a demon king and he wants to make his mark. He thinks Callie can help him do so. He's not taking no for an answer but he also knows the realm in ways Callie (and Declan) doesn't not so enter Lasser the sidekick.

The characters are nicely developed and the arc has a satisfying arc with one exception. Without spoiling it, let's just say the ending should come with a lot of emotional strings attached but we see none of that. Which fair, that might show up in the next arc (I hope so) and either way, it's not a deal breaker but it would be nice to see Callie deal with what happened in a real way.

The art in this is lovely. I'm looking forward to the next adventure.

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