Mall Goth Review

 TW: Mentioning of predatory relationships

I think I expected too much from this one...

Mall Goth by Kate Leth is set in the 2000s and follows a bisexual teenage goth girl named Liv. She has just moved with her mother to a new town with a giant mall. Liv starts spending most of her free time at the mall, and ends up getting a job at Create-a-Critter (like Build a Bear Workshop) through the mall's security guard, Alice. Alice is also one of her mom's friends. 

At Liv's new school, she becomes acquainted with two other goths named Jake and Aaron. They really like gaming, and invite Liv to join their server to play a popular MMORPG. The guy named Jake also has an on-again off-again relationship with another girl in their English class named Layla. Liv also becomes friends with Layla, but their friendship is put to the test when it comes to Jake's behavior. 

Unfortunately, as all of this is happening, Liv's English teacher Mr. Trent seems to have a thing for her, and won't leave her alone. Liv tries to work up the courage to speak up about it to the people she cares about. 

Like all books I give 3 stars to, this did a lot of things that I liked, but also a lot of things that I didn't like. I think I expected this graphic novel to be a lot more chill and fun, with a lot of goth subculture and 2000s nostalgia thrown in. 

Instead I found a lot of parts of the story (and the characters overall!) to be underdeveloped, and I felt there was too much emphasis put on Liv's creepy teacher. Luckily the conflict is handled well at the end. But I wish we could've seen more of Liv hanging out with her new friends at the mall! 

So yeah, this was disappointing. Goth girl characters deserve to have cool stories!