Low Orbit

by Kazimir Lee

Overview

An atmospheric and profound coming-of-age graphic novel about a Malaysian American teen carving out her own identity in the uneasy space between friends and family.

Fifteen-year-old Azar feels stuck. Her mom’s job forced them to move to Vermont, where Azar doesn't know anyone. Her only friends are the next-door neighbors: an aging sci-fi writer and his nonbinary teen, Tristan, fellow misfits in the small-town community. For a while, Azar can escape her troubles by disappearing into the pages of her kindly neighbor’s epic novel, The Exiles of Overworld. But when her queerness throws her life out of balance, Azar realizes some secrets can’t be escaped forever. Somewhere in the abandoned malls, lakes, and comic conventions that fill her new life, Azar fights to find herself. What else will she discover?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781603095525
Publisher:	IDW Publishing
Publication date:	04/29/2025
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.06(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Kazimir Lee has lived for almost equal amounts of time in Malaysia, the UK, and the US. They now reside in Brooklyn. They enjoy queer subtext, parenthood, ghost stories, and karaoke.

Editorial Reviews

Masterful…Azar’s earnest struggle to bridge emotional distances is something every reader will relate to.” — Rebecca Mickey Mock, artist of Compass South and Salt Magic

“Low Orbit is a tender and evocative graphic novel about the pain and joy of all our relationships. You will be drawn into Azar’s world with every page. An exquisite debut.” — Tillie Walden, author of On a Sunbeam

“Lee’s deft cartooning tells an immersive story of adolescent queer experience with specificity and clarity. I loved it.” — Priya Huq, author of Piece by Piece: The Story of Nisrin's Hijab

“This lovely, generous book offers a fresh and exuberant perspective on queerness. Intergenerational and intercultural in its scope, it offers readers a look at the radical possibilities that open to us when we learn how to be ourselves with each other.” — Dr. Shiamin Kwa, author of Regarding Frames: Thinking with Comics in the Twenty-First Century

“A moving journey of self-acceptance.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Lee has crafted an earnest coming-of-age graphic novel... Azar’s resilience can be a model for teens to recognize that the pain they are in now is not how they might feel in the future.” — School Library Journal

From the Publisher

2025-01-18
Queer teens navigate their relationships to family, each other, and themselves.

Malaysian American Azar Sharif, a Muslim girl from Brooklyn, just moved to Ashford, Vermont, for her mother’s job. Her father has stayed behind to sell their apartment. Through proximity, she becomes friends with Tristan Wathe, who’s white and nonbinary and the child of Azar’s family’s landlord. Tristan shows Azar how to get around town and becomes someone she can talk to about the secret she’s keeping from her mother—her own queer identity. The two teens bond over difficult situations with their respective parents. When Azar ends up hospitalized following a serious accident and has a big fight with her mother, she goes upstairs to stay with Tristan and their dad, Shannon, a science fiction author. There, despite Tristan’s dad’s issues, she finds connection and acceptance. Throughout, Azar reads Shannon’s epic novel; text excerpts from it are differentiated from the dialogue by a different font and interspersed between scenes. These interludes can be jarring because the passages from the novel don’t directly connect to Azar’s story arc and the small snippets don’t give a full enough sense of why Azar loves the work. The illustrations are clear and focused on the characters’ faces and emotions. The muted color palette used throughout emphasizes the pervasive feelings of loneliness.

An uneven but moving journey of self-acceptance.(Graphic fiction. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews