Lumberjanes Vol. 1 (Lumberjanes, #1)

by Noelle Stevenson, Shannon Watters, and Grace Ellis

[nitzan_schwarz]

To read this review and more check out Afterwords!

When I decided I wanted to read more graphic novels, I knew I had to pick up Lumberjanes. For one, I adore the art style. It's so fun! For another, I really liked the premise, and I heard a lot of great things about it.

Unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations. My official rating of it is somewhere between 2.5 to 3 stars, and this is probably as far as I'll get with this particular series.

Now, I'm going to warn you. You're going to hear a lot of complaints here and not a lot of good things. That being said, this is not a horrible graphic novel or something like that. There's a ton of hijinks, characters to ship, cool designs, quirky atmosphere and setting. Those are all good things. So don't go thinking I hated this. But I guess my disappointment kind of colors everything, and I do want to say all I have to say. So... take that into consideration.

You see, the main problem I had with this one is that I kept feeling like I opened the tv on an episode from season 2 of the show. This general sense of "I've missed something that happened in the previous episodes" lingered throughout the entire read. I didn't know who these people were and what their relationships were like and where we were, and yet I felt like I was supposed to.

I kept waiting for this feeling to dissipate, but it never did. Part of it, I think, is due to their reaction to all the monsters around them. They... well, they weren't freaked enough. Have they seen monsters in the past? Are they just a bunch of crazy girls? What is going on??

Another thing that kept bothering me is that this felt kind of like a Gravity Falls ripoff. And... well... Gravity Falls does the whole area with crazy monsters and schemes hiding in plain sight a lot better. Although I should probably clarify that I love Gravity Falls to death.

And then, I felt like there wasn't much struggle in the story. Every setback our heroines encounters got solved almost immediately by one of the Janes. It was... too clean. As a rule, I don't like clean problem-solving in stories. It doesn't feel authentic. And so... neither did Lumberjanes.


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Okay, so, unfortunately, this is somewhere between a 2.5 star to a 3 star for me. I don't think I'll be continuing with this one, simply because reading graphic novels is pretty new to me (I'm a manga gal) and I'd rather invest my time with the ones that speak to me.

The main problem I had with Lumberjanes is that it feels like starting a show in the second season instead of the first, and that feeling doesn't really disappear throughout this whole novel. Like, I kept feeling like I've missed a volume or two somewhere in there.

Second, I love Gravity Falls. This kind of felt like a less compelling version of it, relying more on quirky hijinks than a story or buildup.

Third, I felt like there really wasn't much struggle in here. Like, a problem would occur, one of the Jane's will figure out the solution in a few panels, repeat. It's just... too clean. And their reactions to being attacked by monsters or things like this is REALLY underwhelming. Which again, made me feel like I've missed something. Or that the characters are not really that well written.

A huge plus for this one is the art style. I wish I loved this because I really dig the way its drawn.