Review by Ian Keogh
On the surface everything is going right for Kit. He’s captain of the school football team, is about to go off to university, and has a girlfriend that loves him, but he has doubts about her planning their future. He’s already feeling trapped before the reappearance of Emma, his close friend who moved away five years previously. What seems a story of ordinary teens figuring their way forward, though, takes a supernatural turn when more is revealed about Emma. Her mother died of cancer during her years away, which were preceded by Kit taking a heavy fall.
David Wilson has previously illustrated a graphic novel, but this is an assured début from someone both writing and drawing their first work. Constantly creative storytelling choices are made, both visually and narratively, the present day events being sustained by the lack of clarity about what happened in the years since the prologue pages, beyond hints of Kit going off the rails.
The sample art shows two distinct approaches employed, the neat cartooning giving way to darkness as Kit seems pulled into another world. It’s subtly insinuated, but Wilson suggests that’s already what’s happened, with Kit having suppressed everything he was at thirteen to conform to his parents’ view of success. It’s not long before he arrives at even darker content, with Kit spiralling downward, angry at the pressures he’s under. Wilson is excellent at explaining those pressures, and how Kit is boxed into a corner, unable to talk to anyone about what he’s feeling. Simultaneously Wilson’s showing Emma taking a different approach to matters affecting Kit. She’s learning while he’s puzzled and having forms of seizure.
It establishes Soulmates as being intelligently planned and emotionally strong, as it’s not just Emma and Kit who can be understood, but the supporting cast also. A good scene lays out how Kit’s girlfriend Ashley feels at the lack of connection she’s getting from him, and there’s a constant page-turning undercurrent.
When a confession and revelations sequence occurs it’s uplifting, but any fears it might also suck the tension out are rapidly dispelled as Wilson uses it to accelerate the story into adjoining territory. An occasional scene flops, Kit and Emma separately talking to friends post-kiss seemingly pulled straight from Grease, but then it’s not long before a fantastic revelation. Wilson’s almost been waving the clues in front of us, yet it’ll still surprise. The explanation of what the title means is also a stunner.
Some bleak moments occur, but amid them Wilson offers some sensible advice teens may not take from other sources as he works his way to a suspenseful ending. Whether considering Soulmates as teen drama, supernatural thriller or plain romance, it works on every level.
