A review by ashley_mcfadden
Verona Comics by Jennifer Dugan

dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Up until about the halfway point, this book was almost a star higher. Look, I love that books are addressing more concerning mental health issues, like severe depression and what that can do to the people around you, and I don’t think it was handled bad at all. In fact that was probably the most real part of the book even though it was, admittedly, my least favorite (at least when Jubilee and Ridley were together and he literally became dependent on her for everything and she didn’t even really question it). I love that the characters got help too for the mental disorders and for her codependency issue that arose because of the situation. I do feel like a lot of the issues surrounding the comic books store was not finished and it felt like this big lead up that they were all so worried about and literally nothing happened with it at all. Other than the setting, the comic book part really was not impactful to the story despite how central the business is to both of the characters initial story lines. I don’t know, it just felt like after a certain characters were forgotten about, plots were flipped upside down, and eventually it felt like I was suddenly reading a different book. Unfortunately, it wasn’t my favorite, and despite it dealing with real world issues, the characters and the plot started to get on my nerves. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings