A review by kellygorman
Heartstopper Volume 1 by Alice Oseman

emotional funny lighthearted reflective relaxing sad 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? No

4.0

My review of all 4 heartstopper books:

This is definitely for someone, but I don’t think it’s for me.

Good:

• The art style is really consistent, but you can also tell that Oseman improves over time!! Still, she kept the same style, and the characters are really easy to distinguish from each other. 
• There’s cute moments between Nick and Charlie at pretty much every chapter. 
• The supporting characters are fun. Tara and Darcy are some of my favorite parts of the books!
• I was really rooting for Nick and Charlie’s relationship honestly. 
• The characters are likable and relatively three dimensional. 
• Nick’s dog is so cute I can’t handle it. Nellie<3
• The texting is probably pretty accurate. I don’t really talk like that but as far as books that feature texting this one wasn’t so bad. 
• A couple of the scenes here and there were really nice. I liked when they went bowling, I liked when they went to the beach, I liked the time they spent in Paris, I liked the New Years’ Party. 
• The pacing was good, it never felt like it was dragging. 
• I liked the fact that there wasn’t a “plot” and we kind of just got to see these characters live their lives. Books like that can be really fun. 
• I think graphic novel was definitely the best medium to tell this story. 
• She dove into some really important topics in the story that I don’t read about often. I think this book will definitely be really meaningful and important to a lot of people, especially queer teenagers. 
• I liked a lot of the cute little details she added. For example, at one point, they’re all on a bus, and Tara is reading a copy of Radio Silence. Nice attention to detail!!

Bad:

• Every single conversation between Nick and Charlie devolves to “oh my god shut up you’re so cute!” It would have been nice to have a few moments of them just quietly enjoying each other’s company.
• There’s only two types of character: people who are nice to Nick and Charlie, and absolute demons that are horrible in every way. Like, every single character that isn’t Nick or Charlie’s friend is just a complete monster for absolutely no reason. For example, there’s this one character, Harry, who just terrorizes both of them for no reason. But then, all of the characters who aren’t like that are just perfect in every way and have never done anything wrong ever. It just makes it not very interesting. 
• Why must there be a dramatic moment or spontaneous speech every three seconds. Just let them have a nice moment together instead of making it all “I’m so sorry” “i love you so much” “I’m so nervous about this”. This was maybe my biggest issue with the books. There is not a single cute scene that doesn’t include some kind of “deep moment.” It’s a little exhausting! 

I would recommend this to: 

• People who read the content warning first!!!
• Teenagers/preteens 
• LGBTQ+ people
• People who enjoy fast-paced reads
• People who can handle some heavier topics mixed in with lighter moments
• People who want to prepare for the Netflix show coming out soon that will inevitably become popular on tiktok 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Mental illness, Bullying, Eating disorder, Homophobia, and Self harm