In award-winning author Kristen Kiesling and illustrator Rye Hickman’s YA graphic novel The Harrowing, a psychic teen hunts potential killers until she discovers the boy she loves is her next target. Rowan Sterling should be worrying about normal teenage things like attending college and whether her best friend Lucas is maybe more than a friend. . . . Instead, she’s having terrifying visions of blood and violence. As the premonitions increase in number and intensity, Rowan seeks her father’s help, but instead finds herself drugged, kidnapped, and sent to a mysterious facility called Rosewood. It isn’t long before Rowan discovers Rosewood isn’t a boarding school or an asylum: it’s a training center for teens with special abilities who are known as Harrows. Harrows can view the actions of would-be murderers before they commit crimes, and the scientists at Rosewood believe it is their duty to use the Harrows’ powers to make the world a safer place. When they are apprehended by a Harrow, imminent criminals, known as imcrims, are captured and indefinitely detained in a state of sedation. At Rosewood, the Harrows are taught how to identify, track, and apprehend imcrims. Rowan is immediately drawn to Rosewood’s mission; after all, she lost her mother to a random act of violence two years prior. However, some of the other Harrows question the treatment of imcrims—how can it be ethical to imprison people who haven’t actually done anything yet? Empowered by the skills she’s acquired and ready to change the world, Rowan returns home, but when she reunites with Lucas, she has a vision of him shooting a man in cold blood. Now Rowan is questioning everything she learned at Rosewood—she refuses to believe Lucas is capable of murder—and sets out to protect him from the Harrows.

クリステン・キースリングらによる本作は、決定論と自由意志の相克を一人の少女の葛藤を通して描いた傑作です。母を失ったトラウマから「未然の正義」に傾倒する主人公ローワンの姿は、読者に「防衛の名の下に個人の未来を奪うことは許されるのか」という重厚な倫理的問いを突きつけます。グラフィックノベルという形式だからこそ表現し得る、生々しい幻視描写が物語に並外れた緊迫感と心理的深度を与えています。 物語の白眉は、システムの歯車だった彼女が、愛する者を守るために運命へ抗い始める転換点です。施設による思想教育や盲信から脱却し、自らの手で不確かな未来を掴み取ろうとする孤独な戦いは、人間の尊厳を力強く肯定しています。冷徹な科学のロジックと、決して割り切ることのできない切実な感情が激しく火花を散らす、魂を揺さぶる一冊です。