]When I first picked up Luminous Beings, I was not sure what I was getting into. All I knew was that it was a young adult graphic novel, and that it had a vaguely postapocalyptic setting. There is something I’ve always found fascinating about the YA category, even after aging out of being in its target demographic. Perhaps it is the character dynamics, which somehow don’t feel the same as those between adults. Perhaps it is nostalgia, though my own life as a teen was nothing like those of the teens in most such books. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t help but feel really excited to sink my teeth into a YA graphic novel again, especially after having just finished a bunch of rather heavy adult novels.

Luminous Beings tells the story of four teenagers—Ty, Burger, Miles, and Fib—who live in the aftermath of humanity’s latest brush with extinction, caused by undead squirrels referred to as “squizzies.” In this new world, people have to wear hazmats—known as “hazzies”—when they step out, and they are still mourning the loss of 0.08 percent of the world’s population (often referred to as the zero zeroes), who were killed in the near-apocalypse. Ty and Burger plan to make a documentary together about the squizzies; meanwhile, Ty is trying to figure out how to tell Burger that she is going to move away, for university. Before she can do so, the four of them find information about Fink, their former boss who has gone missing and was assumed to be one of the zero zeroes. In an attempt to find Fink, they traverse locations as distinct as a nightclub, a castle, and a trailer, and they find out that things are not quite as they thought they were.

Visually, the graphic novel is stunning, with its palette of pinks and purples, giving it an otherworldly, futuristic feel. The characters, too, have interesting and distinct appearances. The world of the novel—with its rowdy nightclubs, medieval castles, and freaky squizzies—feels similarly interesting and unique. Arnold and Pimienta have done an excellent job bringing to life teenage trials and tribulations in a world that is both strange and familiar in different ways. For example, the characters often use fictional slang—that “zz” appears a lot, with words like “squizzy,” “hazzy,” “shizz,” etc. being thrown around.

The normalization of wearing hazzies is another aspect of the world that enhances its postapocalyptic atmosphere. Arnold had first conceived of this book in 2020, and I can’t help but wonder if the COVID-19 pandemic had been at least partly an inspiration for this story. What Arnold does reveal in the novel’s acknowledgements is that it was the result of a self-imposed challenge to take his silliest idea and treat it with utmost sincerity. This is reflected in how much of this book hinges on the absurd: the murderous squirrels offer an obvious example, but there is also a young woman going clubbing in a fairy-like hazmat suit and a man living in a castle he had built for his girlfriend. While the wackiness of it all was pretty enjoyable, I did find this aspect somewhat lacking in worldbuilding: the squizzies and the consequence of their existence are at times like these entirely in the background, to the point it felt like they could be entirely removed from the story without much change in the plot. Yet these were events that took the world onto the brink of an apocalypse. Further, most of the exposition on the killer squirrels is done in a single page. Apart from the hazmat suits, and a few mentions of the zero-zeroes, there isn’t much about the long-term consequences of the presence of squizzies at all.

What the graphic novel does excel in, however, is in its depiction of friendship, as well as the trials and tribulations of teenage life. The characters are all teens on the cusp of adulthood, and the book does a great job depicting the confusion that the characters feel while confronting their future. Ty and Burger’s friendship has an especially interesting and nuanced portrayal. Friends since childhood, the two of them bond over their love of filmmaking, even comparing themselves to the Coen brothers. Ultimately, Burger’s reaction to Ty getting into a university in a different city is initially just as she feared: “Everyone else picked a college or a job. But I picked you, Ty, I picked you. And I thought you picked me” (p. 107). It was refreshing to see a complicated opposite-gender friendship that did not evolve into a romance, with the main romance in the book being between the two queer characters, Miles and Fib, instead. In between their wacky hijinks, the four teenagers have a lot of sincere, heartfelt moments that felt true to the teenage experience. Even the side characters, like Fink and Hannah, are fairly memorable as well. All that said, the humour in this book felt like a mixed bag—while some jokes landed quite well, others seemed quite awkward. But perhaps that too is accurate to the teenage experience.

In other words, if you’re looking for a lighthearted, comedic look at the teen experience that focuses on hijinks in a vaguely post-apocalyptic background, this book is bound to be a quick, fun read for you. If, on the other hand, you want a book that focuses on its speculative or dystopian elements, Luminous Beings is bound to be disappointing. What we are left with is an enjoyable read, but whether it is one that will linger remains to be seen.