Given Vol 3 by Natsuki Kizu

 

Absolutely forever ago my friend Chloe lent me all the volumes of this graphic novel, which is based on a band called Given who in the first book haven't even met and who throughout the series get closer. I found them all after my move and am really trying to make my way through them mostly so I can have them back to Chloe. I've had them way too long! 

In this book Uenoyama realises he's in love with Mafuyu and they kiss each other just before the band plays their first live gig. But Uenoyama doesn't say anything to Mafuyu so they're just both confused Jaruki has a massive crush on Akhiko, but Akhiko is seeing someone else so that's really confusing too. These boys are just all useless and need to chat.

This review just doesn't need to be that long. I enjoyed the progession of the story. I liked the artwork, as previously. I'm giving this four out of five. I'm writing this in mid December, I wonder if I could get to the rest of the series soon? 

Paper Girls Vol I by Brian K Vaughan and Cliff Chiang - Review

A friend of mine lent this to me ages ago and I picked it up one day in late August and read it really quickly. I liked it so much that I've got the rest in the series to read too. It's a really fun graphic novel and I would really recommend it whether you like graphic novels or not.

The comic is set in 1988 and all the action takes places in one day on the first of November. Erin is twelve years old and has recently got a job delivering newspapers. She is out delivering when she meets KJ, Mac, and Tiffany. A group of teenagers attacks them and steals a walkie talkie from them. The girls chase them and find some kind of strange machine in the basement of a house - it's sort of like a UFO. The girls then try to protect themselves from the strange groups of people who are fighting - the teenagers and some weird dinosaur-like creatures. 

I really liked the colours used in the comic, and the fashions of the girls which showed that the setting was the late eighties. I am so intrigued to read more and will probably do that soon. I'm giving this four out of five. 

Bloom by Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau - Review

This is another book I borrowed off my friend Chloe. She knew I would love it so passed it across, and I did indeed love it and am really glad I read it. I loved the artwork in this book - everything is in the same shade of blue as on the front cover with white and grey, meaning it's really lovely to look at. I just loved the artwork, it's really simple but effective. 

So, Ari is the protagonist of this book. He has just left high school and he wants to move to the city (Baltimore) with the rest of his band. He lives in East Beach which is a suburb of the city, so he's desperate to get away, and it's going to be so cool to live with his band, which contains his closest friends! But there's the problem of his family's bakery. Ari has to work there whenever he's needed, and he's totally sick of it. He's sick of baking baguettes and bagels and cupcakes and all the rest of it. So he makes a deal with his dad that he will find his own replacement.

Enter Hector. Hector is from Birmingham (Alabama, I presume, but it's not spelt out I don't think) and I also think he's Samoan or at least part Samoan. Ari's family is Greek, the bakery is Greek too. He loves baking and he's also really good at it. Ari keeps working there and the two of them get close and start flirting with each other. Hector has an ex boyfriend and while Ari doesn't explicitly state his sexual preferences, it's clear he likes Hector. 

Something big happens which changes everything, though. I wasn't expecting this to happen and I think it happened at an odd place in the narrative, but I did like it. Ari's friends change too, in a way that I thought was really realistic and true to life. They're just post high school and it's then when life is changing fast and it's hard to keep up with. 

I will agree with some criticisms on Goodreads that said that the time skips weirdly in the book. I think it does, but most of the time it's easy to keep up with. I really liked Ari and I loved Hector - he's very sweet and this is a really cute story of two kids falling in love. 

As I said I really liked the artwork and I really hope there is a follow up to this book. I'm giving it five out of five. 

Given Vol 2 by Natsuki Kisu - Review

I read the first volume of this graphic novel when my friend Chloe lent it to me because she thought I would like it. I did, so she lent me the second volume. And then I totally forgot about it, so didn't get round to reading it for ages. Then she reminded me about it and about three other books she had lent me, so I decided to get to them and read them all in a few days. And I did! This was the first. 

So we're back with Uenoyama, Akihiko, Haruki, and Mafuyu. In the first volume they put their band together and the reader found out what happened in Mafuyu's past which makes him the way he is. In this volume, he's trying to write lyrics for some songs for their first gig, but he's really struggling. 

I loved the artwork for the gig the band actually play, it seemed really realistic and each member seemed to come alive and to really love what they were doing. It really seemed to get across the emotions of playing live music. 

I'm not sure if I'll read anymore in this series, but I did like this a lot. Five out of five. 

The Girl From the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag - Review

This was also one of the books that I borrowed from my friend Chloe. I had heard of it before and really wanted to read it, and I'm really glad I did because it's lovely. It's set on an island which I think is in Canada somewhere, and there are four girls who are friends. Morgan is our protagonist. She lives with her brother and her mum, and life has been hard since her dad left. (I think, maybe he died). Her brother is antagonistic towards her and her mum, and life just isn't like it was. Morgan has lots of secrets now, including the one where she thinks she might want to kiss girls. 

Morgan slips into the sea one day and almost drowns, but is saved by a mysterious girl called Keltie. Keltie then comes ashore and woos Morgan - with some really outlandish phrasing that was very endearing and which makes total sense in context - and the two girls start a secret relationship.

But Keltie doesn't want to stay a secret, and Morgan's friends are suspicious. Plus her friend Serena's birthday is coming up and the party is going to be on her parents' boat. The boat is also going to do tours round the island, and that is something that is worrying for Keltie... 

I loved the mysticism in this book and I loved Keltie and how adorable she was. I loved Morgan and really sympathised with her. All of the illustrations in this book are just so beautiful - full colour and in gorgeous sea shades. The artwork is just beautiful. 

I really liked this and am giving it five out of five. 

Heartstopper Vol 5 by Alice Oseman - Review

It's the latest instalment of Heartstopper! Yay! I wanted to read this as soon as it came out, but it wasn't available in my library. Then it appeared, but I couldn't place a hold on it. So I asked the librarian to, and she was able to, so finally I had it in my hands! I picked it up last week, because I knew it would be an easy read while I was away in Edinburgh with my friend. I really enjoyed it and am glad I read it.

So as you may remember, Nick and Charlie have been together for a couple of years now and they've said 'I love you' to each other, and they're out to everyone important in their lives. Nick is in the sixth form so he's having to start making some decisions about his future. Meanwhile Charlie is sitting his GCSEs.

Charlie is mostly in recovery from anorexia, but it's something they both keep in mind during this book. They want to stay over with each other, but their parents aren't too sure. There's funny bits about keeping the door open and stuff. Charlie's parents say they can have a sleepover once Charlie's exams are over, which they do. They have some sexual contact and they're both really happy about it - but Nick doesn't really have friends to talk to about it so he's a bit sad about that. The sex stuff is really cute, not explicit but adorable between the two of them. Charlie is a bit anxious about his body and I'm glad that it was shown that they talked about it. 

Meanwhile, Nick says he's going to go to the University of Kent so that he can stay near Charlie instead of them having to be long distance like Elle and Tao. But he drives Elle and Tara on a bit of a road trip around some universities. He really likes Leeds Uni (and so he should, Leeds is great) but can he bear to be so far away from Charlie? He talks to Elle and Tara about his relationship with Charlie and it was really nice to see him being more open in general.

The art is as usual just really cute. I liked a lot of the little details like when they're kissing or cuddling. I liked the sort of dotty bits where at one point Charlie was like 'fine' and the picture of his face was adorable. I liked again how Alice showed text conversations between a few different people. I liked the depictions of the universities - trips that I remember well myself - and I liked how Nick really grew in this book in particular. In all I'm giving this five out of five because I love them, and I'll be really sad to say goodbye to them in Vol 6! 

The Oracle Code by Marieke Nijkamp - Review

I bought this for my friend Chloe for Christmas and then when she'd read it she lent it to me - I need to give it back to her actually, and not forget! I had bought this on a recommendation from my friend Lucinda, who clearly got it bang on here. Chloe and I are both interested in representations of disability in fiction and her interest is in graphic novels specifically, I would say. She writes a graphic novel herself about two young men who fall in love after meeting when one of them has suffered a spinal injury and become paralysed. So this was right up her street! I don't read a lot of graphic novels but when I do I do enjoy them. 

So, this is set in Gotham City and is a DC novel. I know literally nothing about Gotham City except that Batman lives there, but Lee assures me that Commissioner Gordon is a regular in that universe and so is his daughter Barbara. She is the main character of this book. She's wounded in a shooting and ends up having to use a wheelchair. She goes to a rehab centre which is in a huge mansion, where she has therapy, learns how to manoeuvre her wheelchair, and works out in the gym. She really does not want to be there, so she keeps to herself even though several people try to make friends with her. 

Barbara is a hacker, and has a friend who is also a hacker, but he hasn't really been in touch with her since the shooting. She misses him and she reaches out, and she also reaches out to her dad, because she's convinced that there are weird things going on in the mansion. Her dad doesn't believe her though. But there are people disappearing, aren't there? Even if the system says differently... 

Barbara does learn through the book about things she can't do any longer but also about things that she CAN do now (like play wheelchair basketball!). She comes a long way even in not many pages, and she works on a mystery too. I also really liked the artwork in the book - it's pretty dark and dingy with bright flashes of orange and purple. It felt kind of punk to me. 

I liked this, I'm giving it five out of five. 

Given by Natsuki Kizu - Review

My friend Chloe lent me this book because it's about boys in a band who fall in love and she thought I would like it. She was right, I did! I like graphic novels because I like looking at the art at the same time, and the artistic choices that have been made.

So the story is about a band and it ends up that there are two relationships going on between the four of them. Because this is the first volume, though, it mostly just sets up the band getting together. Ritsuka is the electric guitarist and he's still at school. He goes to his special spot one day and finds another boy sitting there. A boy with a very fancy guitar, but with apparently no idea how to play it. It's got broken strings, so Ritsuka helps the boy, Mafuyu, mend it. He isn't sure who the guitar belongs to, but Mafuyu wants to learn to play it so Ritsuka helps him. Ritsuka already knows the bass player, Haruki, and the drummer Akihiko, so the four of them do start a band by the end. 

Chloe asked me to guess which one of the boys was her favourite and it was a no brainer, it was obviously the soft blonde one Haruki. He's my favourite too! 

I'm looking forward to reading more in this series. I'm giving this four out of five. 

Welcome to St Hell by Lewis Hancox - Review

I know who Lewis Hancox is from TV and from twitter, but I didn't know he had written a book until my friend Jane visited in February and mentioned this book. I immediately bought a copy on eBay and took it with me on a mini break to the east coast. I started and finished it in the same day because it's really compelling and interesting, and also because as a graphic novel it's easy to read. 

So Lewis is a trans man and has been out since he was nineteen, but before that everyone thought he was a girl and he had previously identified as a lesbian - there's a really funny bit where his dad says he had to come out again as straight when he came out as a man, which I really liked the inclusion of. Lewis has been really brave in coming out with his story and his deadname, I think. He skilfully shows how difficult he found being a teenager, especially in somewhere like St Helens where any kind of difference is seen as odd and often subjected to bullying. I really related to Lewis' depiction of how he tried to fit in as a teenager and how difficult it was. When he went to sixth form college he did start to find himself a bit which was lovely to see. 

The graphics are really nice and there's some inside jokes about them too, like about how Lewis' mum always appears in her dressing gown. Pages that are edged in black are when Lewis himself appears - as older Lewis - when he's trying to tell his younger self something. I liked the artwork. 

I also like the depiction of how hard it was to be a teen and why; I related to this and I think a lot of readers will even if they aren't trans. You still understand not feeling 'right'. This is a brilliant addition to both graphic novels and to queer literature. I really hope Lewis writes/draws something else because I really think he could! I'm giving this five out of five, and I'm also going to be lending it to a bunch of people! 

Heartstopper Vol 4 by Alice Oseman - Review

I read the last book (so far!) in the Heartstopper series back in August. I think this was my favourite so far and really cemented my love of the series. Charlie and Nick go through some rough stuff in this book which brings them closer together, but they also learn that they can't always fix what's wrong with each other. A valuable adult lesson! 

Charlie struggles with an eating disorder in this book, which began in Vol 3 and which comes to a head here. Most of this story is told in flashback by Nick, which worked well as it allowed Nick to sum things up and let the author avoid some things which may have been really triggering. Charlie spends time in hospital and Nick talks to his mum a lot about it. I liked this a lot. 

Nick also wants to come out to his dad, but struggles to see him as he lives in Paris. He visits, at the end of the book, and there's a brilliant bit where Nick does come out and there's all drama. In the meantime, there's more stuff at school of course, and a lot of cute bits. I'm giving this five out of five and now I really want Vol 5 to come quickly! 

Heartstopper Vol 3 by Alice Oseman - Review

I was really excited to get to Vol 3 of Heartstopper because I don't know this part of the story! Vol 1 and 2 are what has been in the first series that has aired on Netflix, so this was all new. I loved it! First of all Nick's brother comes home from uni and he's kind of a dick towards Nick and Charlie, asking if Charlie has 'turned Nick gay'. Nick is clearly annoyed and very protective towards Charlie. 

They talk about coming out to other people, but decide not to. Charlie also wants to tell Tao about them, but can't seem to find the right time. Nick sits his GCSEs and then they both go on a school trip to Paris, with a bunch of other people. They share a room - but not a bed! - and start trying to have fun. But Nick's worried about trying to meet up with his dad, and Charlie's barely eating, which is worrying everyone. Charlie keeps trying to talk to Tao, too. And Tao is busy with Elle!

I loved the book, it was nice to see some story I didn't know and I loved the trip to Paris. I loved the queer teachers! I loved the slumber party and I loved that Nick and Charlie had some really deep chats. They're both also desperate to say 'I love you' to the other, which is just toooo cute. I'm giving this five out of five! 

Heartstopper Vol 2 by Alice Oseman - Review

I placed holds on all of the Heartstopper books at the library because I really wanted to read them, but they came in the wrong order so I've had Vol 3 out of the library for ages and keep getting overdue notices... but I had to get Vol 2 first and then read it! So I finally did! I knew that the first series of the TV show encompassed this book as well, so I wasn't surprised to see some of the storylines, including the lovely trip to the beach when Nick and Charlie have decided they're officially boyfriends. I loved that bit both on paper and on the TV! 

I liked seeing which bits were different, and why I thought certain editorial decisions had been making in putting the graphic novel on to the screen. I liked the fight between Nick and Harry, and I liked Tao because I just like Tao. I'm giving this five out of five because these are just such joyful books. 

Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman - Review

Okay so if you've been paying attention recently you'll have seen that this book was withdrawn from shelves in a very reactionary manner. This piqued my interest in it so I went on the library system to request it, but it wasn't there. So I asked the next time I went into the library if they could do an interlibrary loan for me. The person there got me to fill in a form and then I didn't hear anything until I got a notice to say that it was in the library for me to pick up! I did so and was then surprised that it wasn't loaned from another library - it was brand new! Barnsley libraries had bought it! I'm really pleased because I hope that it gets circulated around amongst children and adults alike. 

So you might have heard that this is a graphic novel about the Holocaust, written between 1978 and 1991. Let me start there. The author is Art Spiegelman, who is the son of Holocaust survivors Vladek and Anja. They were Polish Jews who ended up in Auschwitz but who both survived. Art was born in 1948 when the couple were in Sweden, shortly before their move to America. Anja died by suicide in 1968 and Vladek is remarried to Mala, who he seems to dislike. He is in ill health, and over the months Art starts to get his story about World War Two. 

Obviously you know that both Anja and Vladek survived the war from the beginning, but the book is still immensely harrowing. I'll come back to this point. 

The Jews are portrayed as mice throughout the book, and the Nazis are cats. The Polish are portrayed as pigs, and there's the odd American, Brit and French person along the way too. I found it interesting because sometimes Art portrays himself as wearing a mouse mask, as if he is putting his Jewish side on or something - I found this very powerful. 

Anja and Vladek met and were married before the war, and had a son, Richieu. Anja's family owns a hosiery factory and has a lot of money, which at the beginning they seem to believe will protect them from the full horror of the war. They have to move into a ghetto (fact for you: the first ghetto was in Venice, Italy, and was used to segregate Jews there in the 16th century) and as the years go by, more and more of their family members are deported and, in Vladek's English patterns, "are finished". The family eventually hides in a bunker, and smaller and smaller spaces. The couple decide to send Richieu to family in the country; he did not survive the war and Art talks about the trauma of trying to live up to the spectre of a dead brother throughout his life. Vladek and Anja are separated and both end up in Auschwitz, where they eventually make contact. The end of the book sees the Germans surrender but also shows the absolute confusion at the end of the war when inmates were marched out of the camps and then just....... left free. I actually really liked that Anja and Vladek's life was shown after this, when they were refugees, displaced persons, and how they had to scramble to even try to rebuild their lives. 

Art finds his dad quite irritating, while still loving him and while trying to firstly get his story and secondly understand his trauma. Vladek refuses to spend any money and saves all kinds of things just in case - both of which are easily understood as trauma responses, but which are difficult for his family to live with. I think Art did a brilliant job of portraying Vladek as a very human person - there can be a tendency to show people who have lived through something traumatic as perfect and without fault, I think. That is definitely not the case there, and I liked that.

Vladek is never blase or casual about friends and family members who died, but he is matter of fact about it, and I think that is how he had to be in order to survive. At the end, he talks about how few of their family survived - just a brother and a nephew or something like that. I found this so harrowing - it's easy to intellectually know that six million Jews (and many other people the Nazis wanted to exterminate, including Roma, gypsies, and queer people) but I found it very hard to be faced with the knowledge that of these two people's huge families, only a handful remained by 1945. I found this to be a brilliant part of the book which really brought it home to me. 

I also found the sheer luck that Vladek and Anja had absolutely astonishing. It really felt like their survival wasn't through strategy or anything at all that a person could influence, but that it was just sheer bloody luck that they survived when so many others didn't. Vladek comes close to being found or close to death several times. It is terrifying and so utterly random. 

I'm giving this five out of five - it's absolutely brilliant and will really educate you on the lives of actual Jewish people before and during and after the Holocaust. My undergraduate degree was in Theology and Religious Studies so I do know a lot about Judaism and its history, but there was still a lot for me to learn here and for that I am really, incredibly grateful. I urge you to read this immediately. 

Check Please #1 by Ngozi Ukazu - Review

I was hanging out with my friend Leanne between Christmas and New Year and she mentioned this graphic novel, about a gay hockey player called Bitty. I don't know why she mentioned it, but it piqued my interest and I also reckoned my friend Chloe would have heard of it. So I messaged Chloe, and she told me where to get hold of the book. I always enjoy the graphic novels I read, so I don't know why I don't make the effort to read more of them. Maybe I'll make that resolution for 2022!

So Eric R Bittle is a figure skater but he's at Samwell University on a hockey scholarship because he can obviously skate. The novel is told in 'episodes', which are as if Bitty is doing a vlog to the reader and is telling you what has happened since he last vlogged. I liked this, I think it's a cute way of telling the story. Bitty joins the team and finds the rough and ready hockey players a bit difficult to understand and get on with, but then he wins them over by baking in the hockey house. 

He also really hates being checked (a hockey thing!) and has to fight with letting that happen in a game without totally freezing. The team captain is called Jack Zimmerman, and he's the son of famous hockey player Bob Zimmerman, and is under a lot of pressure from him to perform. But he and Bitty work really well together as a team, and score points in games.

I really liked the novel, I thought it was very cute and really sweetly drawn, with a lot of humour in it. I'm giving this five out of five! 

Incomplete Vol 1 and 2 by Chloe McGenn - Review and Giveaway

My brilliant friend Chloe is an excellent artist and has done many things in the time I've known her, including making jewellery from doll heads and limbs, and running a shop in Leeds, but for the past few years she's been working on a graphic novel, Incomplete. The novel is about two boys who fall in love; Pip, who is able bodied, and Matt, who is paralysed by an accident on the rugby pitch. The book is partly based on Chloe's experience - her partner Ian was paralysed by an accident on the rugby pitch when he was sixteen. Chloe met him a few years later and as their relationship grew she did loads of research into people who are living with spinal injuries. The books aren't totally autobiographical though, but it is nice as a reader to see glimpses of their lives shine through.

I love Pip - he's enthusiastic, and irascible, and has a lovely character that shines through the books. He always wear brightly patterned shirts, which Chloe has spent a lot of time working on, and it shows. Matt is less easy to get to know, but I love how quiet and patient he is. 

The books are so beautifully drawn and there's the cleaned up drawings and text, but every now and then there's a "pencil sketch", like the original drawing, and I love that Chloe has left these in. There's a gorgeous one of Matt sitting up in his chair in the second volume. 

Chloe has very generously offered a giveaway for my blog! If you live in the UK, you can win BOTH volumes of the comic, so you can see Pip and Matt's relationship from the beginning to them getting serious in Book 2. If you live abroad, we're sorry, but due to postage costs we can only offer Volume 1. 

All you have to do to win is leave a comment on this post! 

Chloe at work!

Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks - Review

My friend Lucinda bought me this book for my birthday and I knew I needed to get to it soon because I am still trying so hard to get through the books I got at gifts. I love Rainbow's books and was intrigued to read this, as it's a graphic novel. I don't read many graphic novels although I appreciate a lot of work and talent goes into them. I picked this up mid April just because it was still hanging out round the side of my bed!

The premise is that Josiah and Deja are both workers are a pumpkin patch in the United States, and have been for the last few years. However, they're now both seniors, so this is their last season there. Plus it's the last night! After this, it's the end! 

Deja is determined to make tonight different. The two of them usually work in the succotash hut (I had to look up what that was) but tonight everything's a bit switched around. Josiah has had a crush on a girl who works in the Fudge Shoppe for years, and Deja is encouraging him to go for it, to talk to her and ask her out, before it's too late forever. 

The two of them then go on capers around the whole park to try to find her. Deja is determined to try every kind of snack food there is available while they're running around everywhere. They bump into two of Deja's exes, one male and one female, and go on quite a wild goose chase to try to find the girl. 

I loved the ending - it was perfect, and very sweet. I loved the art, too. Deja is brown skinned and chubby, so I loved her look a lot. I loved the whole kind of brown and orange theme going on - it added to the autumn theme of the book. I'm not knowledgeable about graphic novel art, but I liked this a lot.

I'm giving this five out of five - it's a very cute story, with a lovely ending. 

The Wicked + The Divine: The Faust Act by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie - Review

I was at a conference in April (I like saying that because it makes me sound so academic!) about fan studies and someone mentioned this graphic novel. I liked the sound of it so ordered it. I don't often read graphic novels. I find that the illustrations go over my head at times - I read the words and don't understand what the picture is trying to add to that. But I thought I would give this one a go!

So the premise is that Laura, a mixed race teenager from London, who meets some of the Pantheon, a group of twelve gods who come back to earth every ninety years, then die within two years. She meets Luci, aka Lucifer, who comes up against Cassandra, who is trying to discover the truth about the Pantheon. All kinds of stuff starts to happen that Laura has to make sense of.

I spent a lot of time looking at the art trying to really take it in. I liked the nods to pop music - Luci clearly looks a bit like David Bowie and one of the gods has a definite Rihanna vibe to her - and I also really liked the pages where the artwork wasn't just in cells but took over the whole page. Paying more attention really did add to my enjoyment of the book as a whole.

I'm still not sure graphic novels are for me but I did enjoy reading this and have passed it to Lee to read. I've giving it four out of five.

The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland - Review

I signed up to a reading challenge this year in a penpal group I'm in (I still send loads of snail mail!) and one of the categories was to read a graphic novel. I've never, ever read one! I'm not a visual person at all; I much prefer words over pictures. But Lee's into graphic novels so he lent me The Killing Joke, which is considered to be one of the best. It's the Joker's origin story - we see him as a younger man before he went mad.

I found it a struggle to remember to look at the pictures as well as read the words. This was a problem when the action went back in time and I got confused and had to remember to look at the drawings! The ones set in the past were sepia toned as opposed to the present day ones. But I liked the style of the drawings a lot.

I'm not very keen on Batman as a hero because I think he's just like a rich vigilante spoilt brat who does what he likes. I like the Joker though, so it was interesting to read more about him. He made some excellent points about the fine line between sanity and insanity, and between lawfulness and criminality. I liked my first step into graphic novels!