In Utero

Genre/Award/Honor

Graphic Novel

Age Group

Young adult (teenager)

Plot Summary: 

An explosion rocks Australia. 12 years later, Hailey attends a low budget summer camp that her father found in a shopping mall that closed after the explosion. What she and the other children find there is shocking!

Justification

Chris Gooch is an award winning Australia comic book artist and writer. I first heard about In Utero in a graphics novels class and wanted to check it out.

Plot

At first glance, In Utero seems to be rerunning an old “B” science fiction movie plot from the 1950’s: nuclear explosion leads to monsters. Gooch had already presented compelling characters before I recognized the plot, so I kept reading and was well-rewarded! Hailey is a precocious and independent 12-year-old girl. She attends a summer camp that her father found on the cheap at an abandoned shopping mall. As the oldest and most responsible child there, she is enlisted to help corral the younger children when they begin exploring the building, which gives her the freedom to do her own exploring. First, the boys discover slimy organisms. Then Hailey befriends a mysterious girl. Soon, it becomes clear that the slimy organisms are multiplying and growing into something monstrous! A bittersweet novel about friendship and sacrifice, it is hard to put down.

Color

One of the first things I noticed about In Utero when I flipped through the pages is that it not a full-color graphic novel. Instead, most frames are blue or red. Blue frames tend to focus more on the characters and their growth during the story, while the red frames tend to tell more about the horror of what is growing inside the mall.

Character Development

Hailey and Jen form a quick friendship, but Jen is not what she seems. As Jen shares more about herself, Hailey realizes how different Jen is from what she first assumed. Even though she feels misled, Hailey quickly sizes up the situation developing around them and chooses not just to ally with Jen, but remain friends, in the upcoming battle.  

References

Gooch, C. (2024) In Utero. Top Shelf Productions.