The strength of the novel, however, lies in its thematic gravity: the author touches upon a smorgasbord of topics that inform many conversations today (race, immigration, prejudice), and the passionate politics of the book come through with vivid clarity because we’re lost inside the experiences of its protagonists. A book like Lobizona doesn’t undo any clichés it deals in them, and while it's not particularly complex or unpredictable, it perfectly counterbalances the elaborate world-building elements Garber has managed. The notion of werewolves and witches is exhilarating, and the authors milks it for all its considerable worth. Lobizona dwells in the low-lit overlap of myth and reality-and the way it owns that space is spellbinding. One of the things I relish most in fiction is when fantasy is interwoven with our world and its timeline.

Lobizona is a vibrant representation of Argentinian culture and folklore.

But Manu’s lies about her family are as growing thin, and when her father’s real identity is dragged to the fore, the truth of it blows out the embers of hope that let Manu believe she finally had somewhere she could call home. For years, Manu’s eyes were a strange fact she had to bend her life around, yet here is a place where she fits with the familiar comfort of a well-worn coat.

And then they did.Īlone, Manu sets out to look for answers to the thousand questions she has no answers to, and finds a magical school for witches and lobizones (Argentinian werewolves). Her whole life, Manu had waited for them to find her and her mother. The possibility of being snapped up by ICE, or of her father’s past catching up to her first, is always there, hovering in the air like an axe. Manuela Azul’s life is laden with eggshells, and she walked on afraid, fraying a little more every time she has to put on her mirrored sunglasses to hide the unnatural bright yellow engulfing her eyes from the whites to the irises. The beginning of Lobizona is nightmarish. A world where her unusual eyes allow her to belong.Īs Manu uncovers her own story and traces her real heritage all the way back to a cursed city in Argentina, she learns it's not just her U.S. A world straight out of Argentine folklore, where the seventh consecutive daughter is born a bruja and the seventh consecutive son is a lobizón, a werewolf. A world connected to her dead father and his criminal past. Without a home, without answers, and finally without shackles, Manu investigates the only clue she has about her past-a mysterious 'Z' emblem-which leads her to a secret world buried within our own. Her surrogate grandmother is attacked, lifelong lies are exposed, and her mother is arrested by ICE. Until Manu's protective bubble is shattered. As an undocumented immigrant who's on the run from her father's Argentine crime-family, Manu is confined to a small apartment and a small life in Miami, Florida. Manuela Azul has been crammed into an existence that feels too small for her.

Akata witch sparknotes