2.5 stars
Adorable artwork, a sweet supporting cast, and plenty of trauma to go around.
The adorable cover and sweet synopsis did not prepare me for what this book was actually about. Despite being reduced to a single mention of “a complicated home life” on the back cover, the bulk of this volume is actually about Boo’s struggle with her mother’s alcoholism, partying, and toxic behavior. Definitely more family drama than romance.
It’s hard to rate this book because of the disconnect in the marketing. Definitely just looked like a cutesy romance from the outside, but it gets very dark in terms of family relationships and trauma. Not necessarily bad, but it was an unexpected turnaround.
The artwork is fantastic. Love the character designs. I especially love that this isn’t a book about Boo struggling with her appearance and body image. She’s just presented the way she is and is always rocking adorable hairstyles. Nice presentation of different body types and not demonizing stretch marks.
Because this was originally a webcomic, the flow is a little awkward in places as a graphic novel. Pacing felt off at points but I could see it having been successful in a short comic format.
A lot of the action takes place at night and, while the artwork is wonderful, these scenes are so dark it’s hard to even enjoy the style.
The first volume cuts off very abruptly at episode 42 of the webcomic. Definitely sets up the action of volume 2, but it was so abrupt and there wasn’t really any resolution or much development in this volume.
Overall, this one was fine. Great artwork. Tackles some tough topics with realism. Odd marketing choices and some awkwardness in the transition from webcomic to full book. But it had some good moments.