School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-7-On a late-night food run for their mother's high school theater group, middle schoolers Axl and Ivan, accompanied by high schooler Sid, grab Mexican fast food from a disturbing drive-through and find that they're in a new dimension. Mysterious creatures have created copies of everything, but with a bizarre twist. Tacos with tentacles and goopy, sentient buildings and cars are out to get our heroes, who must use all their cunning (and a windshield scraper) to save the world and avoid being copied themselves. The characters are expressive, with the same mix of slapstick and swagger found in Hale's other popular graphic novels. The monsters are unsettling-exaggerated and drawn with a fluid, boneless grace that maximizes the creep factor and wonderfully evokes peril. Creatively positioned and sized panels move the action along at breakneck speed. Rendered in grayscale with burnt orange accents, the illustrations are inventive and intricate. The lack of a clear ending will frustrate some but leave most readers clamoring for more. VERDICT Hale has done it again-another graphic novel that offers a terrific blend of the eerie and the humorous that will captivate new readers and delight dedicated fans.-Kelley Gile, Cheshire Public Library, CT © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
An entertaining blend of humor and horror drives this whirlwind tale of science gone awry. When middle school-aged twins Axl and Ivan set out with high schooler Sid on a 1:30 a.m. food run for the crew of a high school production of Brigadoon, things go very wrong. The provisions that the kids secure from a mysterious Taco Bear restaurant abruptly morph into strange tentacled beasts that attack them. After joining forces with a many-limbed grad student, the kids embark on a journey into a gooey alternate world created by a mad scientist's legions of bioengineered squid-bees. The narrative isn't always clear: the bewildering opening act is followed by an info dump midsection that delivers exposition via nested explanatory stories. Still, the plot's silliness balances each scenario's underlying terror, and artwork by Hale (the Hazardous Tales series) helps maintain this equilibrium with myriad funny details-including a cargo kilt-wearing, snow scraper-wielding protagonist-and the juxtaposition of bare suburban settings against otherworldly landscapes filled with writhing, distorted creatures. Weird, freaky fun. Ages 8-12. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.