James Nicoll Reviews

2023’s Her Little Reapers is the second graphic novel in Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda’s The Night Eaters horror series.

Four months ago, a home-renovation project revealed to twins Milly and Billy Ting that their mother is a demon, their father is a demon, and thus … the Ting twins are also demons.

Dealing with their new-found status would ordinarily demand intensive training. Too bad for the Tings that their terrifying mother Ipo belongs to the sink or swim school of parenting. Laid-back dad Keon disagrees but is unwilling to cross Ipo. The Wonder Tings are on their own.

In the parents’ defense, there have been disturbing developments in the occult world. A powerful entity has died. Inexplicably, the great and powerful demons and their ilk have not responded … yet. Parental attention is on the big picture.

Despite being traumatized by their experiences in Volume one (plagued by nightmares in the succeeding months) and despite being warned by their parents to be careful, the Tings willfully interact with the haunted doll that contains the soul of their murdered neighbor, Mrs. Lee. As a consequence Milly Ting finds herself haunted by a second ghost, that of a murdered college-age woman

Although the dead woman cannot remember her name or how she died, she wants justice. She looks to Milly to provide it. Even though they should be busy at their restaurant, the twins set out to solve the murder.

Working their way down a chain of clues proves surprisingly easy, though attended by some disquieting events (a witness dissolving into bloody slurry, an attack by demonically-possessed assassins). The twins learn three important lessons:

• The name of a warlock who may be at the centre of the mystery.
• Never to trust the dead.
• The twins are nigh-indestructible.

Is being nigh-indestructible sufficiently indestructible to survive what’s coming? The twins will find out¹.

~oOo~

This is another narrative universe where I am not entirely certain how, given how comparatively fragile they are, there are still humans.

Those who enjoy Takeda’s lavish, gory art in Monstress will enjoy it here as well. People who dislike graphic violence will not enjoy the art or the graphic novel. People who dislike gallows humor will likely be better off seeking a different reading experience.

One might not expect restauranteurs to be adept at detecting. It turns out that anyone can follow a trail of clues until the bad guys tip their hand by trying to kill the investigator. In an unusual twist, the Big Bad actually knows how this game usually ends, so looks for alternative solutions to attacking entities who might very well defeat him.

The casual reader may conclude that Mr. and Mrs. Ting are negligent while their twin children are idiots. This is an illusion created by Mr. and Mrs. Ting’s habit of leaving their kids to survive (or not) without much adult intervention, and by the Ting twins’ tendency to ignore blatant indications that they are well out of their depth. In Ipo’s defense, she knows children of her kids’ ilk do not often survive infancy, so even eighteen or twenty years of additional lifespan is a clear win. As well, she believes for good reason her kids can rise to the occasion… once they see they have no alternative.

Whereas the first volume left the impression that the problems encountered by the Wonder Tings might be comparatively self-contained, what the kids call monster-of-the-week, this volume suggests a grander arc. It seems that apocalypse looms (as it did in the same creators’ Monstress). Human responses to apocalypse seem to range from helpless apathy to attempts to monetize doomsday. Where do authors get their crazy ideas?

The characters are endearing in their ways, even grumpy Ipo. This entry in the series is rather grim. The first novel was humorous horror; this novel seems to horror without as much humor. Pity, although I am curious as to what volume three will be like.

Her Little Reapers is available here (Amazon US), here (Amazon Canada), here (Amazon UK), here (Apple Books), here (Barnes & Noble), and here (Chapters-Indigo).

1: The Ting twins are slow to realize that if they invite retaliation, an attack that they can withstand will hurt their fragile human friends and employees.

Consider the example of Duo Damsel and Mon-El fighting the Time Trapper.