Graphic Novel Review: The Night Eaters Book 1: She Eats The Night by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

Posted on March 19, 2024 at 6:44 am by Gene Ambaum

The Night Eaters Book 1: She Eats The Night by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda. Abrams Comicarts, 2022. 9781419758706. 204pp.

This family story starts in Hong Kong in 1956, when Ipo arrives looking for work, and continues in Queen’s Village, New York, now, where she is a hard, chain-smoking mother of two who lives across the street from a spooky house. Her husband seems like the most patient, loving guy ever, and the couple’s love story is charmingly strange. Their kids, Milly and Billy, are working to keep their restaurant afloat. Ipo is trying to get them to take care of a few plants, and eventually she makes them accompany her across the street as part of what seems to be a neighborly gardening project. It quickly becomes clear there’s something supernatural happening at the house, though. And then Milly and Billy are forced to face it.

In some ways this reads like a beautifully illustrated, narrator-less, Hellblazer-esque Finding Your Roots episode. By the end you’ll know more about Ipo and her family, and it’s clearly the beginning of a series of books rather than a standalone graphic novel. (Volume 2 has already been published, and it’s just as great.)