Tantalize: Kieren’s Story

Tantalize: Kieren’s Story is the graphic novel adaptation of Smith’s young adult noire fantasy by the same name—told from the perspective of Kieren, a mixed-blood werewolf. Kieren’s senior year of high school finds him awakening to the realization that he is in love with his best friend Quincie who clearly returns his affection. Unfortunately, he is reluctant to act upon these feelings because to-date he is unable to control the beast within and thus fears harming her. Moreover, any day now, he will leave to join an urban pack and learn the ways of his kind. When the murder of the chef at Quincie’s ancestral vampire-themed restaurant appears to have been committed by a werewolf, Kieren is compelled to clear his name and save his best friend from all that threatens her—including herself. Doyle’s illustrations extend the text by expressing what Kieren can’t, or won’t, in the halting tight-lipped narration that is so representative of an adolescent male struggling with serious emotions. The stark contrast of the black and white depictions ensure that the audience is ever mindful of the protagonist’s conflicting allegiances to the best friend he loves and to his kin and kind, making it a natural companion piece for William Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.

Tantalize: Kieren’s Story by Cynthia Leitich Smith; illus. by Ming Doyle
High School
Candlewick Press
32pp.
Published 2011
ISBN 978-0-7636-4114-6
$19.99

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