Reviews

Verona Comics by Jennifer Dugan

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faeofpotions's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

For me I wanted to love this book. It has great queer representation and a cute take on romeo & juliet. My biggest qualm was the ensing felt unfinished. I wish there was more to the end of it.

emuhleesbooks's review

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

krakow54's review

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challenging emotional funny relaxing sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

taliatalksbooks's review

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Verona Comics by Jennifer Dugan might have had the cutest Meet Cute I’ve ever read. I loved the beginning of this book so much. I liked the way it progressed too, but it did get a little cliche in the middle. I went into this book expecting just a standard romance, and until the end, that’s what I thought it would be, but this story was also about not losing oneself and staying true to who you are, which I really liked. I like the quirkiness of these characters and the way they interacted felt natural, as did the way the events of the story progressed. On top of being an important book about self-identity, I think this book is an important read about the complexities of love with mental health issues that I would highly recommend.

Content Warnings

cait_aor's review

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2.0

DNF at 33%. I’m sure some people love this book - it is just so not for me. I couldn’t get over it being marketed as a Romeo&Juliet retelling - my JAM - but being so completely inaccurate. The entire point of R&J is that the families are *alike* in dignity. The Montagues and the Capulets both suck!! By making Jubilee’s family great and Ridley’s family totally horrible, it is completely missing the point of R&J and IMO, shouldn’t be marketed as a retelling at all.

On its own merits, I think this book could be good. Still not my thing really, but it’s a fun story and I’m sure some people like it. It has good queer rep and talks about mental illness very candidly, which I like. In conclusion - not a bad story, just not accurately portrayed.

sprigplantar's review

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3.0

I'm so on the fence with this book. I enjoyed the LGBTQ+ representation, but I think it could've been more subtlety done instead of just simply name dropping every chance it got. It was a lot more intense of a read than what I expected from the synopsis and with such a topic, it should've been at least noted somewhere before you began reading. Then there are the relationships that the main characters have with one another and others. I just didn't like how they treated certain characters. I did like that they addressed the toxicity of the relationship between Jubilee and Ridley because oftentimes that codependency is romanticized rather than frowned upon.
The writing itself just put me off a little, especially since I was listening to the audiobook. It seemed a little cliche.

alrightieaphroditie's review

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4.0

three point five stars ∗ lol i have one single tear falling from my eye as i write this.

i went into this book expecting it to be an average, somewhat cliche contemporary novel and while on some parts it was exactly that, it was also so much more. this book dealt with mental health issues in a way no other contemporary (that i’ve read so far) has. reading certain parts of this book was hard for me because i really related to ridley in so many ways and it almost felt like i was watching (reading?) myself in his character. my heart ached so much for him.

so it really started out as a classic cute contemporary, and i loved all of the nerdy aspects of it bc i am, ahem, a Huge Nerd for all things comics/superheroes. i dream of being able to work in a comic book store! that was a really fun aspect to this novel. i also loved the good relationships within this novel, like gray and ridley’s sibling bond and jubilee’s familial system. it was interesting to see those compared to the not so good relationships within this story, mainly between ridley and his parents. i will also say that i wasn’t a big fan of jubilee’s best friend, jayla, for a good majority of the book. i did like her at first, but she kinda took a turn for the worst as the book went on. jubilee questioned her sexuality a bit in this novel, and i felt like jayla wasn’t really supportive of that journey even though she herself is part of the lgbtq+ community. she also was one of the people who pushed jubilee into ‘living life’ and not focusing so much time on her music, and yet she complained a lot about jubilee doing just that? idk i just didn’t really care for her.

all in all, though, i did enjoy reading this book & it was a lot more than i anticipated!!