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A review by haia_929
Level Up by Thien Pham, Gene Luen Yang
4.0
This is a trimmed down version of my review, to view the full review visit The Book Ramble.
Dennis is haunted by his father's death. He lets ghosts from his past try to force his hand in achieving his destiny, and almost gets completely screwed for it. Gene Luen Yang and Thien Pham create a fun story through Dennis's journey about finding what makes you happy and working to get it.
I really enjoyed this. I am a big fan of basically everything from First Second, because they publish some great stuff. This is no exception. I have read, or plan to read, most of Gene Luen Yang's work.
The story, about a boy who wants to live up to expectations his parents have but has to do so by sacrificing his own happiness, is pretty standard, kind of the classic college story that's in a lot of YA content. I think that Yang handled the concept well, with a bit of a twist at the end (no spoilers, I promise). I found the mixture of realistic story with sci-fi/fantasy from the video game world worked really well.
The art for me was just okay. I like Pham's style just fine, but I just felt something was lacking. The style is very much the same as Sumo, which is fine, but I think for this story it didn't quite gel the right way for me. I thought it was lacking some of the depth necessary for this story. The emotions didn't carry across in quite the right way, though they were still present. I liked it, but it wasn't completely on point.
I found Dennis a likeable guy for the most part. I can completely understand his desire to work in video games and pursue the things he enjoys doing for a living. The little angels that hang out with his were a good mix of cute and creepy which kept me interested throughout.
Overall, an enjoyable and cute read. The art wasn't perfect for me, but was still good. I definitely recommend this to fans of graphic novels, and young adult readers.
Dennis is haunted by his father's death. He lets ghosts from his past try to force his hand in achieving his destiny, and almost gets completely screwed for it. Gene Luen Yang and Thien Pham create a fun story through Dennis's journey about finding what makes you happy and working to get it.
I really enjoyed this. I am a big fan of basically everything from First Second, because they publish some great stuff. This is no exception. I have read, or plan to read, most of Gene Luen Yang's work.
The story, about a boy who wants to live up to expectations his parents have but has to do so by sacrificing his own happiness, is pretty standard, kind of the classic college story that's in a lot of YA content. I think that Yang handled the concept well, with a bit of a twist at the end (no spoilers, I promise). I found the mixture of realistic story with sci-fi/fantasy from the video game world worked really well.
The art for me was just okay. I like Pham's style just fine, but I just felt something was lacking. The style is very much the same as Sumo, which is fine, but I think for this story it didn't quite gel the right way for me. I thought it was lacking some of the depth necessary for this story. The emotions didn't carry across in quite the right way, though they were still present. I liked it, but it wasn't completely on point.
I found Dennis a likeable guy for the most part. I can completely understand his desire to work in video games and pursue the things he enjoys doing for a living. The little angels that hang out with his were a good mix of cute and creepy which kept me interested throughout.
Overall, an enjoyable and cute read. The art wasn't perfect for me, but was still good. I definitely recommend this to fans of graphic novels, and young adult readers.