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jbeoin's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
CONTENT NOTE: Dissociative episodes for a character with DID, ableism, homophobia, bullying, violence, self-harm, alcoholism, underage drinking, child abuse, transracial adoption
Cuckoos Three is a lighthearted slice of life romance about two boys in the countryside as they navigate the challenging complexities of life and the sweet simplicity of their attraction to one another.
What Worked for Me:
✦ I really loved these characters! They were each so sweet in their own ways and immediately endearing. Their care and kindness for one another was genuinely touching.
✦ I don't have dissociative identity disorder (DID) and definitely don't know enough to critique the representation in this comic; I'm definitely very eager to hear from readers with DID about their thoughts on this rep! For me personally, as a disabled person always eager for more openly disabled rep in media, I was pleased to see DID presented in a way that felt, to my uneducated self, much more positive than what I unfortunately see it portrayed as in other media. I was glad to see some of the acknowledgements at the end of the book from the creators and how they took care to express that they are not experts and that DID presents differently in each individual. I felt like this comic helped me to better understand DID, too!
✦ The illustrations are so charming! I really enjoy the way Cassandra Jean illustrates expressions especially. It's very playful and sweet and romantic. I like all the extra lines she includes on the faces that give them a stylized charm and texture.
✦ The romance between the two is also very charming. While I take a bit of issue with the dynamics shown (another story with the darker skinned character being the protective one over the lighter skinned one and the one taking most of the lumps without question 😕), I thought both characters felt like they could be real people with real lives.
✦ I will forever aspire to draw cats the way Cassandra Jean does in this book-- they were so cute and funny!
✦ I liked that Murry wasn't pressured and didn't feel the need to immediately figure out his queer identity. He just fell in love with Jacob, and that was that. It's nice to have these kinds of queer stories where characters can just fall in love with one another and not have it be a big thing.
✦ I appreciated that the creators also didn't shy away from showing the hostility of the other teens. I like having some books where this hostility doesn't happen, but I also appreciate when the comics are realistic. Having grown up in a small city deep in the Bible Belt where football and white cisheteropatriarchy are also king, I felt like the comic handled this in a fairly realistic way.
✦ I like the way the Cassandra Jean plays visually with the different sizes of Murry and Jacob, as well as their personalities. It was fun to see Jacob's playful sides represented in a catlike way and to see Murry's gentle nature shown in the ways he shows affection.
✦ I also really enjoyed the color palette for this book. It was warm and inviting and cozy, and there were a few scenes in particular that made me want to dive into the pages.
✦ The lettering was really well done. Easy to read, not overcrowded, well placed balloons-- very nice.
✦ I also thought the paneling and environmental choices were very nice in here, too. I appreciated the minimal backgrounds and use of the gutter space as much as the more detailed ones. I was introduced to comics through manga, and this definitely seems to have a lot of manga influences, so I found it very pleasant and easy to read.
✦ It's always nice to see an interracial romantic relationship that doesn't feature a white person!
What Didn't Work for Me:
✦ I have some questions about the ways Murry was illustrated and depicted as a character overall. With his darker skin, I would expect to see more characteristics that aren't so European: fuller lips, perhaps more textured hair, a lighter color skin tone on his palms, etc.
✦ As I mentioned earlier, I also take issue with the way Murry is shown to be an immediate guardian of sorts to Jacob. I don't think it's impossible that this dynamic happens, but it's so expected in narratives with a darker skinned character and a lighter skinned love interest. It feels like much of the comic devoted Murry's attention to protecting Jacob and supporting Jacob's needs, but that wasn't always reciprocated, which was disappointing.
✦ While I think the creators created a social environment with antagonistic characters that felt realistic to me, I think the way Murry comes out in the comic feels a bit out of sync with that environment. I think it's certainly possible for people in real life to immediately accept being queer, and I actually liked Murry's sweet and accepting personality being highlighted that way; however, I think it's unrealistic that a queer character immediately begins feeling comfortable showing that queerness around a very small town with zero qualms or forethought about how it will be received and their own personal safety. I think it was an odd choice for the comic to choose not to even discuss these things when it's still frequently an issue of safety even in "liberal" cities around the world.
To be clear, I'm not saying that Murry shouldn't have been immediately comfortable with their identity; I'm saying that I doubt Murry, who is shown to be finely attuned to the moods, attitudes, and habits of people in his life, wouldn't consider his and Jacob's safety even a little before choosing to go out together publicly. I also don't think I believe Jacob wouldn't also have some concerns about going out publicly as a queer person in a small town with a bunch of white men who have shown themselves to be even a little hostile to those who are different.
✦ I would like to know why Jacob's character is a transracial adoptee. I was uncomfortable with the white savior flavor to Jacob being (view spoiler)
✦ I also felt we needed more depth from the characters with their parents. It felt a bit odd to me that we didn't hear more about their relationships given how much the kids were dealing with. That doesn't mean I needed to see a positive relationship with the parents, just that it felt like there was more to the story than we were shown, and I think it could have been helpful and interesting to see how those relationships informed our main characters.
Overall
I give Cuckoos Three 4 out of 5 speech bubbles: This is a quick and very sweet read with lovable characters, lovely art, and queer disabled rep.
How to Read It
Interested in checking it out for yourself? Here are a few ways you can get your hands on a copy!
Local Options
Your Local Library!
Your Local Comic Book Shop!
Your Local Book Store!
Small + Indie Options
Bookshop
Loyalty Bookstores
Midtown Comics
Big + Boxy Options
Yen Press
Barnes & Noble
Kinokuniya
Read This Next
If you liked this, check out A Sign of Affection, Firebird, and Young Men in Love: A Queer Romance Anthology
If you enjoyed this review, I have a monthly comic review series called More Comics Please! on my website with interior page excerpts and additional information not shared here on Storygraph. You can sign up to receive them in your inbox by subscribing to my newsletter Into the Bramble.
Cuckoos Three is a lighthearted slice of life romance about two boys in the countryside as they navigate the challenging complexities of life and the sweet simplicity of their attraction to one another.
What Worked for Me:
✦ I really loved these characters! They were each so sweet in their own ways and immediately endearing. Their care and kindness for one another was genuinely touching.
✦ I don't have dissociative identity disorder (DID) and definitely don't know enough to critique the representation in this comic; I'm definitely very eager to hear from readers with DID about their thoughts on this rep! For me personally, as a disabled person always eager for more openly disabled rep in media, I was pleased to see DID presented in a way that felt, to my uneducated self, much more positive than what I unfortunately see it portrayed as in other media. I was glad to see some of the acknowledgements at the end of the book from the creators and how they took care to express that they are not experts and that DID presents differently in each individual. I felt like this comic helped me to better understand DID, too!
✦ The illustrations are so charming! I really enjoy the way Cassandra Jean illustrates expressions especially. It's very playful and sweet and romantic. I like all the extra lines she includes on the faces that give them a stylized charm and texture.
✦ The romance between the two is also very charming. While I take a bit of issue with the dynamics shown (another story with the darker skinned character being the protective one over the lighter skinned one and the one taking most of the lumps without question 😕), I thought both characters felt like they could be real people with real lives.
✦ I will forever aspire to draw cats the way Cassandra Jean does in this book-- they were so cute and funny!
✦ I liked that Murry wasn't pressured and didn't feel the need to immediately figure out his queer identity. He just fell in love with Jacob, and that was that. It's nice to have these kinds of queer stories where characters can just fall in love with one another and not have it be a big thing.
✦ I appreciated that the creators also didn't shy away from showing the hostility of the other teens. I like having some books where this hostility doesn't happen, but I also appreciate when the comics are realistic. Having grown up in a small city deep in the Bible Belt where football and white cisheteropatriarchy are also king, I felt like the comic handled this in a fairly realistic way.
✦ I like the way the Cassandra Jean plays visually with the different sizes of Murry and Jacob, as well as their personalities. It was fun to see Jacob's playful sides represented in a catlike way and to see Murry's gentle nature shown in the ways he shows affection.
✦ I also really enjoyed the color palette for this book. It was warm and inviting and cozy, and there were a few scenes in particular that made me want to dive into the pages.
✦ The lettering was really well done. Easy to read, not overcrowded, well placed balloons-- very nice.
✦ I also thought the paneling and environmental choices were very nice in here, too. I appreciated the minimal backgrounds and use of the gutter space as much as the more detailed ones. I was introduced to comics through manga, and this definitely seems to have a lot of manga influences, so I found it very pleasant and easy to read.
✦ It's always nice to see an interracial romantic relationship that doesn't feature a white person!
What Didn't Work for Me:
✦ I have some questions about the ways Murry was illustrated and depicted as a character overall. With his darker skin, I would expect to see more characteristics that aren't so European: fuller lips, perhaps more textured hair, a lighter color skin tone on his palms, etc.
✦ As I mentioned earlier, I also take issue with the way Murry is shown to be an immediate guardian of sorts to Jacob. I don't think it's impossible that this dynamic happens, but it's so expected in narratives with a darker skinned character and a lighter skinned love interest. It feels like much of the comic devoted Murry's attention to protecting Jacob and supporting Jacob's needs, but that wasn't always reciprocated, which was disappointing.
✦ While I think the creators created a social environment with antagonistic characters that felt realistic to me, I think the way Murry comes out in the comic feels a bit out of sync with that environment. I think it's certainly possible for people in real life to immediately accept being queer, and I actually liked Murry's sweet and accepting personality being highlighted that way; however, I think it's unrealistic that a queer character immediately begins feeling comfortable showing that queerness around a very small town with zero qualms or forethought about how it will be received and their own personal safety. I think it was an odd choice for the comic to choose not to even discuss these things when it's still frequently an issue of safety even in "liberal" cities around the world.
To be clear, I'm not saying that Murry shouldn't have been immediately comfortable with their identity; I'm saying that I doubt Murry, who is shown to be finely attuned to the moods, attitudes, and habits of people in his life, wouldn't consider his and Jacob's safety even a little before choosing to go out together publicly. I also don't think I believe Jacob wouldn't also have some concerns about going out publicly as a queer person in a small town with a bunch of white men who have shown themselves to be even a little hostile to those who are different.
✦ I would like to know why Jacob's character is a transracial adoptee. I was uncomfortable with the white savior flavor to Jacob being (view spoiler)
✦ I also felt we needed more depth from the characters with their parents. It felt a bit odd to me that we didn't hear more about their relationships given how much the kids were dealing with. That doesn't mean I needed to see a positive relationship with the parents, just that it felt like there was more to the story than we were shown, and I think it could have been helpful and interesting to see how those relationships informed our main characters.
Overall
I give Cuckoos Three 4 out of 5 speech bubbles: This is a quick and very sweet read with lovable characters, lovely art, and queer disabled rep.
How to Read It
Interested in checking it out for yourself? Here are a few ways you can get your hands on a copy!
Local Options
Your Local Library!
Your Local Comic Book Shop!
Your Local Book Store!
Small + Indie Options
Bookshop
Loyalty Bookstores
Midtown Comics
Big + Boxy Options
Yen Press
Barnes & Noble
Kinokuniya
Read This Next
If you liked this, check out A Sign of Affection, Firebird, and Young Men in Love: A Queer Romance Anthology
If you enjoyed this review, I have a monthly comic review series called More Comics Please! on my website with interior page excerpts and additional information not shared here on Storygraph. You can sign up to receive them in your inbox by subscribing to my newsletter Into the Bramble.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Violence, Homophobia, Bullying, Self harm, Mental illness, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
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