A Song for You and I - K. O'Neill - ★★.½

AUTHOR: K. O'Neill

GENRE: Middle-grade Fantasy, Graphic Novel.

PUBLICATION DATE: March 4, 2025.

RATING: 2.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A middle-grade fantasy in graphic novel form. Excellent illustrations. Good potential in the story, but leaves a lot of things half-baked. Might work better for young adults than middle-graders. Mine is an outlier review.

Plot Preview:

Rowan is a trainee ranger, protecting the area under them with the help of their Pegasus, Kestrel. The region Rowan monitors hardly has any danger, much to Rowan’s frustration. The only person active and about in the area is Leone, a laidback shepherd who is more interested in playing his violin than in watching his sheep. However, when Rowan’s eagerness to prove their capabilities to the senior rangers results in an injury to Kestrel, Rowan is forced to work on land-based duties with Leone. Can this forced working partnership turn into friendship when both Rowan and Leone are battling personal secrets?

The official blurb gives me a strong YA vibe. However, this is a middle-grade fantasy, and that stumps me a bit. Nothing about the story or the writing approach screams “middle-grade.” (I am not saying this because of the gender dysphoria; that’s a welcome topic in any book.)

The blurb clearly hints at Rowan, the main character, using the they/them pronouns. However, for almost the entire book, we see Rowan referred to by their birth name “Rose” and feminine pronouns. So either that the blurb leaked out a big spoiler about the lead character’s identity conflict, or that the blurb was deliberately misleading. Whatever the reason, this early reveal of a later plot point left me dissatisfied as I learnt the source of Rowan’s struggle even before it was brought up in the story.

I love the existence of a gender identity conflict in a middle-grade work, but I wish Rowan’s struggle hadn’t been restricted to thoughts alone. Their conundrums should have been indicated more strongly on paper. After a point, it was clear that they wished to be known as Rowan, but the transition is almost instant in the story. No clarifications, no contradictions, no questioning. Real life isn't that easy for LGBTQ+ people!

This problem of raising issues in a undeveloped manner is persistent throughout the book. A lot of the conflict is only internalised, without letting us know why or how or what next. Leone’s secret passion gets a tiny mention in a verbal flashback reference; Rowan’s background isn't even brought up. It is tougher to invest in a character we don’t have a backstory for.

The rest of the characters are also inadequately sketched. We get to see who they are at that point of the story, but there’s nothing to make us actually know or understand them or their behaviour. This applies even to Leone, who is only somewhat defined despite being Rowan’s co-lead. There are hardly any parents in the book, which means that the primary relationships are either peers (Rowan’s fellow rangers – a motley group), teachers (the senior rangers; wish some of them had a greater role to play), and local villagers (hardly any substantial depiction.) The ages of the characters are never clarified, but I presume Rowan and Leone to be teens. The only character I absolutely loved was Kestrel, Rowan’s Pegasus. She had strength, courage, grace, and even a temper, making her an ideal animal companion for a fictional work.

The plot itself is decent as far as the rangers’ work-related content goes. But the worldbuilding is utterly vague. The locations are there but I couldn’t *feel* any of them. A good middle-grade book has a strong and well-defined ending, but this one goofs up even on that. The overall story is divided into chapter-like parts, but the last part comes after a time-jump of unknown duration. We see some of the final developments through the illustrations, but almost everything that’s important is left unsaid.

The illustrations are great, probably the best feature of the book. Though not as ethereal as in ‘The Moth Keeper’, the colour scheme, the animals (especially the various Pegasuses) and the nature scenes are all a delight. Quite a few pages have no text bubbles, so this 240-page graphic novel goes by even faster. But this further highlights the issue I had – the text was given much lower priority. As such, the plot feels surface-level and rushed.

There are some good life lessons here, most of which could be valuable for the target readers. No need to focus only on proving yourself to others, live for yourself and not by others’ standards, think before you act, try to ignore judgement, and do what your heart wants – worthy points, all.

Overall, this book was mostly vague in its character development and jumpy in its plot development. I have read this author’s ‘The Moth Keeper’ and really loved it. Thereby, my expectations from this work were quite high. The execution though left me mostly disappointed.

However, the ratings clearly prove that mine is an outlier opinion. So please do take a look through other opinions and take a more informed call on this work.

Recommended mainly to those who read graphic novels for illustrations. With the story being so vague about ages and backgrounds, I think this might work better for older teens/YAs than middle-graders, but the official target age is 10+.

My thanks to A Song for You and I for providing the DRC of “A Song for You and I” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn’t work out better.