I’m not going to give this one a star rating, because in all honesty, I messed up and had no idea this was a miniseries. This book kept getting recommended to me so when I saw a copy at the library, I picked it up for a quick read.

Because I haven’t seen the show, I had no idea what was going on. I wasn’t familiar with the characters or the plot or anything that was happening. This book is meant to fill in some of the gaps and provide some backstories to the miniseries. So if you haven’t seen the miniseries, it’s not going to make much sense.

The stories were sort of interesting, but I felt like I was missing a lot of context so none of them were that satisfying for me. I am planning on watching the miniseries soon and may come back to read this again when it will hopefully make more sense. I would recommend reading this book only after watching the show.

Overall though, I did enjoy the artwork and the characters and stories were appealing. It had promise, I’m just missing some crucial background which will hopefully be remedied soon.


UPDATE:

5 stars

I just binge-watched the show and it was so fantastic and I loved it. I went back and re-read the book and it makes way more sense now. The first time I read it, I didn’t connect with the characters at all. But after watching the show and getting some background, I enjoyed this book much more. They really captured Greg’s adorableness in the book.

This really does fill in a lot of blanks and makes for a fun read. Even as I was watching the show, I kept having moments of “oh, that’s what that means” or “that’s how they got there”. This is a great book if you have already watched the show. Cute art and interesting stories tied to the miniseries. Plus, there is sheet music for some of the songs in the back, which is a really cool inclusion.

As I said before, watch the show before reading this book. You won’t enjoy the book unless you have seen the miniseries.

Goodreads