Reading: HOTEL DARE - Terry Blas (writer), Claudia Aguirre (illustrator)

The first thing I noticed upon starting this graphic novel was the artwork worthy of an animated television series. The characters, backgrounds, colors, all vividly come to life on the page - even more so once you are start reading, and realize how inclusive the book is. Race, family, adoption, the LGBTQ+ community, spirituality, ageism, all and more are touched upon in this story of three siblings made a family via adoption - Olive, Darwin, and Charlotte - who are all sent to live for the summer with their estranged grandma who owns and runs the Hotel Dare (and could use their help in cleaning and fixing it up). But chores grow old fast, and one day youngest sister Charlotte gets inquisitive, leading her siblings into a private office while Grandma's out ... a move that leads to each kid, as he or she is cleaning a room that morning, to discover a portal into different worlds where Charlotte finds new purpose, Olive helps a fledgling wizard, and Darwin meets a blob-like friend. But when Charlotte - always the loner, though her outward toughness hides a much softer center - decides to stay behind permanently in her world, Olive and Darwin can only keep things secret from Grandma for so long before learning that the three worlds they've all visited are now on a collision course with each other - and that Grandma has some long-held secrets, herself, that may threaten them all. Hotel Dare is inventive and colorful storytelling (am totally in love with the sassy grandma, who I think deserves her own TV series) that builds to a very busy final battle between good guys and bad - "busy" also being the one negative I could hold against the book. Hotel Dare is very heavy on action, characters and even dialogue that, at times, makes for some convoluted storytelling; a lot of ideas and storylines and people/creatures fill these pages, which works on one level because the characters are well-written and well-drawn, though on another level may make you double back a page or two at times, to remind yourself or where you are and whose story you are on. And though that may occasionally make it feel like a novel's worth of story packed into a graphic novel's page count, Hotel Dare remains a boisterous, exciting tale of family - whether a family by blood or love or circumstance - and how strong those family ties can be.  3.5/5 stars

NOTE: I received a free ARC of this title from NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.