The Books

Odd Duck

by Cecil Castellucci
Illustrated by Sara Varon

One Potato Review

Like its heroine, odder than it appears on the surface. Look closely here and you will probably discover some deviant flourishes you missed the first time around: not only in Chad, the new neighbor, who wears his weirdness on his sleeve (conceptual sculptures, violent dancing, racy cocktails), but also Theodora, who cannot mysteriously seem to rouse herself to fly south with the other ducks every winter, and is finally the victim of a heavy, dripping heart which appears before her, quite literally, on a bicycle ride back from town. Castellucci does the telling here (and refuses to shy away from adult formulations like “general malaise”), still it’s the showing, by Varon, that continues to demand our further attention. Both comic and poignant, and worthy of its title.

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