bookheaven | Zatanna: The Jewel of Gravesend (Reply)

Zatanna: The Jewel of Gravesend by Alys Arden

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Zatanna is the latest to age regressed and given a new backstory. I was interested as she was always one of my favorite secondary characters (barring her ridiculous sexist costume). This Zatanna has grown up inside a giant golden elephant hotel/casino in NYC's Coney Island Park. Her parents are entertainers, magicians, her best friends are fortune tellers and her boyfriend's parents are part Russian mob, part magic users.

She has a rather fun life really but while she should be trying to figure out her costume for the mermaid parade with her friends, she is caught up in something strange, something even worse than her dad trying to get her into the spotlight with him and her mom.

Something unknown from Zatanna's past is coming for her and she learns a) she's not safe b) her family and her boyfriend's family have serious dark secrets c) she can do real magic, seeing the magical words backwards (which has always been her spiel).

On the one hand, I enjoyed a lot of this updated Zatanna and on the other they hit a brick wall doing a hundred. I absolutely hated what they did with her family, with the changes to her backstory. It made it rather gross. I don't want to say more because that's part of the big reveal. It was not a change that made me happy, sorry to say. I'm not sure if there's more planned in this reboot but that gave me pause in continuing with more. I did very much like the art.

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