Visitations
Corey Egbert
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Published December 17, 2024
Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads
About Visitations
Inspired by true events, this haunting yet hopeful young adult graphic novel weaves together family dynamics, mental illness, and religion―perfect for fans of Hey, Kiddo.
Corey’s mom has always made him feel safe. Especially after his parents’ divorce, and the dreaded visitations with his dad begin. But as Corey grows older, he can’t ignore his mother’s increasingly wild accusations. Her insistence that God has appointed Corey as his sister’s protector. Her declaration that Corey’s father is the devil.
Soon, she whisks Corey and his sister away from their home and into the boiling Nevada desert. There, they struggle to survive with little food and the police on the trail. Meanwhile, under the night sky, Corey is visited by a flickering ghost, a girl who urges him to fight for a different world―one outside of his mother’s spoon-fed tales, one Corey must find before it’s too late.
Drawing inspiration from his own upbringing in the Mormon church, Corey Egbert welcomes readers on an emotionally stirring, nuanced journey into the liminal spaces between imagination and memory, faith and truth.
My Review
I think the thing that breaks my heart the most about this story is the way that Corey’s mom used religion to isolate him and his sister from Corey’s dad. There’s more to it than that, but it was honestly heartbreaking to read some of those scenes where Corey’s dad tries to be as normal as possible around kids who’ve clearly been instructed to freeze him out.
Corey wrestles with some heavy questions about his faith in the midst of some pretty wild circumstances. There’s a lot to process for him. His mom basically kidnaps him and his sister. At first, he has confidence in her faith. But as time goes on and their situation becomes more dire, things get weirder and weirder.
We watch him and his sister trying to figure out how to respond to this situation in which they suddenly have real questions about the person they’ve believed is the most trustworthy. Where is the tipping point at which you push back and stop listening to this person? How does that work when they are the adult and you’re the child?
The book explores some really heavy ideas like that, but it also celebrates the complexity of family relationships. The author is careful not to demonize the character with mental health issues but doesn’t minimize the harm that untreated illness causes.
Visitations offers a critical window into a high-control religious family and what that looks like from within. While that experience may be foreign to a lot of readers, the characters’ expressions and dialog between characters make it easy to empathize with Corey.
Content Notes
Recommended for Ages 12 up.
Representation
Corey and his family are practicing Mormons. One character has mental health issues.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.
Romance/Sexual Content
References to child sexual abuse. (Nothing happens in-scene.) Corey has a crush on a girl at school. He feels ashamed about his attraction to her. He feels uncomfortable while in the parking lot of a place where there are sex workers present.
Spiritual Content
Corey and his family are Mormon. They pray together and he learns verses and stories from the Book of Mormon. Corey’s prayer experience is sometimes illustrated to show him confronting a character that represents his perception of God as an old man with white hair.
Corey has been taught to believe that when things go wrong, it’s the enemy obstructing Heavenly Father’s plan.
Violent Content
Corey’s grandfather is arrested for abusing a child. (Nothing shown in the scenes of the book.) Corey’s mom worries that someone has abused Corey’s sister. Scenes show kidnapping and hiding from police.
Drug Content
None.
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