Item: Volume One
Rating: 2.00
Author: celinenyx

by Alice Oseman

Boy meets boy. Boys become friends. Boys fall in love. An LGBTQ+ graphic novel about life, love, and everything that happens in between - for fans of The Art of Being Normal, Holly Bourne and Love, Simon.

Charlie and Nick are at the same school, but they've never met ... until one day when they're made to sit together. They quickly become friends, and soon Charlie is falling hard for Nick, even though he doesn't think he has a chance.

But love works in surprising ways, and Nick is more interested in Charlie than either of them realised.

Heartstopper is about love, friendship, loyalty and mental illness. It encompasses all the small stories of Nick and Charlie's lives that together make up something larger, which speaks to all of us.

'The queer graphic novel we wished we had at high school.' Gay Times

Really wanted to like this more than I did. It was cute, but the characterization was so thin that I didn't feel invested in their romance. Charlie is good at running and plays the drums and has anxiety, but Nick is extremely flat. All I know is that he plays rugby and likes his dog? This could have been established in 2 pages, not a full volume. Nor does the book pass a reverse Bechdell test (nor an actual one for that matter) - every "friend" of Charlie is just there to talk to him about Nick. There are sweet scenes of hanging out and hand holding, which is lovely, but compared to the other queer graphic novels I've been reading lately, Heartstopper falls short. I thought it was a huge missed opportunity that the family members only appear in a background sort of way; having genuine non-romance related interactions with them would have helped flesh out the characters beyond their stereotypes.

This book probably works better for people who grew up with a US/UK education system, as it'll be more familiar to them.

Volume One (Heartstopper, #1)

by Alice Oseman

Reviewed by celinenyx on Jun 10, 2020

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