Keezy Young's Taproot: A Story About a Gardener and a Ghost is a tender and beautiful story of love, loss, and connection. Hamal is a gardener with a knack for plants—and talking to the dead—and Blue is a ghost who's taken a particular liking to him. Although they both feel a special pull between them, they both know that their circumstances mean they can never truly be together. But strange things are affoot in town, and it turns out that the two of them may be at the center of it all.

Young's illustrations are gorgeous, and the world of Taproot is immersive and breathtaking. I'd recommend this to anyone who loves a good supernatural romance with a grounded foundation.

Story and Art: Keezy Young
Lettered by AW's Tom Napolitano
Original Lion Forge Assistant Editor: Hazel Newlevant
Original Lion Forge Editor: Andrea Colvin
Oni Press Edition Editor: Desiree Rodriguez
Oni Press Edition Designed by: Kate Z. Stone

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an ARC of this title.
This is a cute romance between a gardener (who doesn't know he's a necromancer) and a ghost. The panels are gently colored like the flowers that are at the center of the story. The fantasy world is rich, if only really hinted at, and ripe for more stories. The sense of dread and suspense are surprisingly affecting given the overall cuteness of the piece. Highly recommended as an addition to the canon of queer graphic novels!

Taproot is a delightfully queer and wholesome comic with a splash of fun, creepy and paranormal that keeps you hooked. the storyline itself is fairly simple yet the subtleties in the worldbuilding are very interesting and well-thought out. the art style is adorable, akin to the likes of Kay O'Neill, which fits the overall vibe of the comic. cute, queer, and creepy - the holy trinity.

Thank you to the publisher, author and Netgalley for allowing me access to read this book.
I flew through this manga as soon as I got the book it was downloaded and I was hooked from the start to the finish, I loved the development of the two main characters' relationship and how they got together, the art style was absolutely beautiful from the style itself to the colour pallet; which is what drew me in. Although there was a little bit of a disconnect with the story being a little bit disconnected and some parts seeming unrealistic even for a fictional book which was kinda glossed over. Besides this, I liked the side characters and although this was short the development of the main characters was great, also loved how they interacted with each other and fully support the LGBTQIA+ community.
Overall I would say this was short sweet loving and adorable, I would defiantly recommend it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me an eARC of this book in exchange for a review.
This was a really quick and cute read.
The color palette and the art style were really beautiful and very much enhanced my reading experience.
The themes of love, life, and death we really touching. I loved the gardening bit a lot and I think it made the art even more beautiful.
Even though it doesn't much focus on sexuality, I still loved the queer rep a lot.
I'll definitely recommend this to everyone looking for short and cute reads and graphic novel lovers!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

Taproot is the story about Blue and Hamal. Hamal is a florist who also has the ability to see ghosts, while Blue is a ghost himself. Blue has realized, that he's in love with Hamal, and Hamal just might love him back. But strange events start happening to the local ghosts and the town they live in, and it's up to Hamal and Blue to try and fix it. First off, I wanted to say how much I love the art style of this graphic novel. It feels warm and cozy and reminds me of the softness that Ghilbi films can have. I also thought the artist's style looked strangely familiar, then I realized I follow this artist on Tumblr! Had no idea they had put out a graphic novel! I also really liked the attention paid to the background of scenes; I feel like a lot of artists try to get away with never drawing backgrounds. (I don't blame them, backgrounds and perspectives are hard!) But I found myself stopping just to drink in all the little details. I also love the design of the town they are in! What a cozy town! The story itself I really liked. A florist who sees ghosts! A ghost in love with a living person! How interesting! However, the pacing felt a little...off? It felt oddly quick to me. I feel like that has a lot to do with having a certain page limit in graphic novels. The scene leading to the ending felt a bit out of place as well? I think it was supposed to be an epilogue of sorts, but it felt more like the story had already ended, but the author said "Wait we still have pages left!". Also, the relationship between Hamal and Blue is so sweet. I could honestly feel the connection between them and the resulting chemistry. I also love that even though they fight, they do reconcile and actually talk out their problems! None of the dumb misunderstandings for no reason! Thank goodness! I do like "Taproot", even though the pacing is slightly off. I'm a sucker for a good queer romance, and this is one of them!

I already heard a lot about “Taproot” before but I never had the time to pick it up but finally I got the opportunity!

My favorite thing about the graphic Novel were the colors. For me it’s always important that the colors look good together and that it’s pleasing to look at!

The story itself was good and interesting but it really felt like something is missing. Everything happened very fast. For me the book could have been a bit longer.

I still really enjoyed reading the story and looking at the pictures!

Thanks you to Netgalley and Publisher for this graphic Novel!

Thanks a lot Netgalley and Publisher for this graphic novel! I really liked the art, it was very colourful and smooth but the issues I had was the fast pacing of the guys relationship and I thought the character development between Hamal & Blue didn’t really stood out to me. I felt they were just there without any emphasis on who they are and what they were bringing into the story.

Look I read it all and again the art is cute so that i give props to Keezy Young for!

I've never had the chance to read Taproot before, and I absolutely loved it!!! It's so so cute, and the artwork is so warm and comforting. I really like the fact ghosts are in the story.

The illustrations in this comic are absolutely 5 star brilliant. The line art and coloring is perfect and the loving glances are practically leaping off the page. I could stare at each page for ages.

The plotting is fine, but it doesn’t quite live up to the lush atmospheric art. It feels almost like an outline for the story that’s supposed to match the illustrations. Like—it could be so much deeper and more fluid with a few revisions, and part of me was sad that it wasn’t.

i got the arc of this on netgalley and read it on my tablet in less than a day. (i wonder why they're rereleasing it?) i enjoyed the art style, light romance and characters like the reaper and various ghosts. this isn't a "deep" read. pleasant. not my usual go-to, and enjoyable. i love a good queer romance--make one of the MCs a ghost and i'm in.

what got me is, i did my customary search, and the author is a white human drawing/writing main characters of color. i don't think MC's actual racial identities are clarified, but they're brown. the book isn't written in first person, which is why i finished it, since i have qualms with reading books where white authors writing black and brown 1st person POV. is this story terribly unique and will i remember i read this in a couple weeks? probably not. was it pleasant to read? sure.

Thank you to NetGalley and Oni Press for providing a copy for review.

Taproot is a lovely graphic novel focusing on the relationship between Hamal, a gardener, and Blue, a ghost. The art style is beautiful, the concept is one that gives me the warm-fuzzies, and the execution is well-done. The pacing could definitely be improved upon, but I also think that's just me wanting more of the story! I enjoyed getting an extra glimpse into Young's process in this new edition, although it makes me wonder how I've missed out on this story for so long. I'll have to have another look at it once it's in beautiful, glossy print!

It'd be very self-centered of me to act as if this book was written for me but .... it feels very much as if this was written specifically with me in mind. The tender and tentative seemingly ill-fated love story, the gardening shop ft. ghosts of it all, the stunning illustrations with countless tones of blue, everything about this spoke to me.
I'd truly recommend this to all readers of graphic novels, young and old, and particularly to those enjoying the quiet, heartfelt whimsy of Kay O'Neill's graphic novels!

This was a beautifully drawn short story. I loved the premise and the artwork though the story felt a little rushed at times.

I really adored this story. The only major setback for me was that it felt as though we were given glimpses of a story rather than one that was fully fleshed out. The colour palettes were stunning and the art style gave the story such a wholesome feel.

I adored one quote in particular:

"There's nothing evil about death, Ghostie, But it's a balance. You can't force life without taking it from somewhere."

There is nothing cozier than gardening and ghosts and it just so happens I love both of those things dearly. Taproot was a lovely graphic novel with a warm and comfortable art style that unravels a story of mystery and love between a gardener and a ghost. I breezed through this read and would absolutely recommend it to anyone who wants something queer, cozy, and easy to digest (Even when there's hauntings and death involved).

My only issues with the storyline are the last chunk which felt out of place after what I thought would have been a nice place to end the story. Without spoiling anything, the additional plot line at the end was quite rushed and I didn't find it added much to the plot.

It’s hard to write this review personally because I was expecting so much but was left feeling disappointed.

The premise for this sounded like it would break my heart completely and I was ready to be devastated ok. A ghost who’s in love with a living person? Devastating right? Also throw in that this an LGBTQ graphic novel, I’m SOLD! Unfortunately there’s just not much here to work with.

I will start with some positives first,I truly loved the color scheme in this book. It was very captivating and calming, the art was also really cute!

That’s as far as it goes in positives for me because we’re not really told much information about any characters. All we know about Hamal is that he’s a gardener who can see ghosts. All we know about Blue is that well,he’s a ghost. I truly would’ve loved to know more about each character even just a little. Especially Blue, like idk maybe his past life as a human and how he died (even though it was told how he did in fact die it was just jokingly mentioned not much detail).

I would’ve also loved to have seen Hamals and Blues relationship blossom. When we meet them Blue immediately let’s the reader know how he feels about Hamal. We don’t get to see how his feelings came to be or vice versa.

As stated earlier the premise was such a good idea but the execution left much to be desired.

I'm absolutely in love with this book. It's a short and easy read, like graphic novels tend to be (to me), and despite dealing with a heavy topic like death, it's a gentle read. Such a fun work, both the narrative and the art style, it caught me by surprise in many ways, though in special the fact that one of my favorite characters was the Grim Reaper, basically. I'd read so much more of this universe, about the characters, yeah, but also the Reaper narrating stories of necromancers, because I feel like a romance novel buff Grim Reaper as a narrator would SLAP. The fact that LGBTphobia isn't one of the moving points of the plot was also very refreshing to me; it's something I've been seeing more often in LGBTQ books, since I've decided to mostly read queer books by queer authors, but it still barely compares to the lifetime of media written by and for cisgender, allo heterosexuals where queer people's only problem is LGBTphobia. I'm barely awake now, to be honest, but I read this book real quick and I wanted to write those things down before forgetting them.,

[reviewed through Netgalley]

As many have already stated, the art was absolutely gorgeous, the story was short, cute, and compelling.

However, I feel as though this graphic novel, like many others, falls victim to pacing issues. The novel felt rushed at times, making it difficult to understand things like the passing of time, or even key events in the plot.

I think the magic system of the book was quite interesting, but given the story being so short it left far too many unanswered questions. For example, I didn't understand whether everyone had access to this magic, or even if everyone knew of its existence. It was simultaneously treated as normal and abnormal.

Many of the magic elements were left unexplained, and it became up to the reader to guess how things happen. I would have loved to learn more about the magic system, and I'm sure it would've increased my personal enjoyment of the story tenfold.

I also would've enjoyed to see a bit more of the romance unfolding and developing between the love interests. It felt like we were being told of their love rather than shown.

I also would've enjoyed to see the author expand on the themes of loneliness that were briefly touched upon near the beginning.

However, I thoroughly enjoyed this story. I am excited to see what more they come out with.

Taproot was such an enjoyable graphic novel! The art is gorgeous and I really loved the ensemble of characters! My only critique is that I wish it was a little longer and had more backstory/details of the characters history. But overall the plot is easy enough to follow and very creative and fun.