Mags is just about grown up, but her life revolves around home by necessity. Part of that is because she needs to care for the aged abuela, but just as much is because of the thing in the basement, that she needs to feed every day. She is stoic about it, never complaining about a weight that would break most adults twice her age.

This all begins to get upended when her childhood best friend, long moved away, comes back home -- now transitioned, with the new name of Nessa. Nessa is more lively, and wants Mags to live more herself. But as far as she knows, the thing in the basement was just a childhood fantasy that they made up when they were kids.

This isn't a big loud fantasy book: aside from its one fantastical element, it is very much grounded in the here and now of small-town southwestern life. It's long, but a very fast read -- the average page is 3-5 beautiful panels, often wordless.

There's too much dark reality here to quite call it "sweet", but it's hard not to root for Mags and Nessa: their friendship is bone-deep and heartfelt. But they each have monsters to wrestle with before they can move on and live.

Lovely stuff. It was recommended to me while I was at one of our local comic shops, and I pass on that recommendation.