Reviewed in The Sapling
By Gem Wilder
August 2021
Read the review on The Sapling here
Believing in Marvels is another NZ YA with a supernatural bent. Marvella 'Marvel' Harris is an Auckland teen with psychic abilities. She sees flashes of the future, but they aren't always clear, and she has to try and translate them.
Marvel's gift is a family trait. Her beloved grandmother, Sadie, is a palm reader, and her Aunt Shirley had also been psychic. Marvel's father has trouble accepting her gift, knowing it causes her stress, and was the reason she was bullied at her former school.
Marvel is surrounded by a host of diverse characters; there's Noa, her new friend, who she tells about her powers and is instantly accepted by; her artist mother; a wayward junkie hairdresser cousin, the son of Aunt Shirley; and many others, some of whom are more accepting of Marvel's oddity than others.
The plot revolves around Marvel, with the help of Noa, needing to figure out what the debilitating recurring visions she is having are trying to tell her. She knows her cousin Vince is involved, and in danger somehow. The book takes the reader on a journey into a seedy underbelly of dark web bitcoin ransoms, drugs, violence and addiction. It's all firmly set in Auckland, the streets and suburbs of which are travelled on by Marvel's trusty skateboard, and occasionally the odd bus or taxi, making it feel very accurate to my teen years.