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A review by morgarelibrare
Giant Days by Boom! Studios, Non Pratt
5.0
One day about two months ago, I was browsing the YA section of Netgalley, as I do, taking in all the new and interesting titles for request, when something caught my eye: Giant Days, by Non Pratt. My heart started to flutter, my eyes widened (probably to the size of saucers) and my fingers could not click the request button fast enough. Could this be?? My FAVORITE graphic novel series being adapted into a full length novel? Oh yes, it most absolutely could.
Let me just start out by saying you don’t have to have read the graphic novels to understand this book and enjoy it. The characters are introduced in a way that it’s easy to fall in with them without there being too much info dumping. The college setting is for lack of a better word, set up perfectly, and the plot is just wacky enough to still be believable, which is one of the things the Giant Days graphic novels excel at so well.
I was pretty sure going into this I was going to love it, and I can now one hundred percent say that I did. I loved this book so hard.
As a lover of the graphic novel series, this felt like getting one giant omnibus of the story at one time instead of waiting month to month for a new issue, which is what I have been reduced to after binge reading all the bound up volumes last year. It’s a good thing I live down the street from a comic book store. The plot itself is completely new in regards to the already existing story, feeling more like a side story arc that could have taken place in the early pages of the graphic novel, but off screen/page. There are mentions to things that did occur in the graphic novel (such as a particular time my favorite, Susan, plays a somewhat humiliating prank on my other favorite, McGraw) but not in a way that makes it hard to understand anything that’s going on. The references just act more as Easter eggs, planted for the fans of the graphic novel.
Susan, Esther, Daisy, McGraw, Ed, and all the supporting characters are written beautifully and fully embody and feel true to their original iterations. This book one hundred percent felt like reading an issue of the comic, just without the graphics to go along with the story, which I feel is the key to any successful adaptation.
This book left me laughing and crying and smiling and yearning for more, so I very much hope that as the graphic novel series continues, this YA adaptation also continues. I will absolutely be here to keep reading both.
*Thank you to Amulet Books and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.*
Let me just start out by saying you don’t have to have read the graphic novels to understand this book and enjoy it. The characters are introduced in a way that it’s easy to fall in with them without there being too much info dumping. The college setting is for lack of a better word, set up perfectly, and the plot is just wacky enough to still be believable, which is one of the things the Giant Days graphic novels excel at so well.
I was pretty sure going into this I was going to love it, and I can now one hundred percent say that I did. I loved this book so hard.
As a lover of the graphic novel series, this felt like getting one giant omnibus of the story at one time instead of waiting month to month for a new issue, which is what I have been reduced to after binge reading all the bound up volumes last year. It’s a good thing I live down the street from a comic book store. The plot itself is completely new in regards to the already existing story, feeling more like a side story arc that could have taken place in the early pages of the graphic novel, but off screen/page. There are mentions to things that did occur in the graphic novel (such as a particular time my favorite, Susan, plays a somewhat humiliating prank on my other favorite, McGraw) but not in a way that makes it hard to understand anything that’s going on. The references just act more as Easter eggs, planted for the fans of the graphic novel.
Susan, Esther, Daisy, McGraw, Ed, and all the supporting characters are written beautifully and fully embody and feel true to their original iterations. This book one hundred percent felt like reading an issue of the comic, just without the graphics to go along with the story, which I feel is the key to any successful adaptation.
This book left me laughing and crying and smiling and yearning for more, so I very much hope that as the graphic novel series continues, this YA adaptation also continues. I will absolutely be here to keep reading both.
*Thank you to Amulet Books and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.*