Graphic Novel Review: Heartstopper Volume 1 by Alice Oseman

Posted on January 17, 2023 at 6:14 am by Gene Ambaum

Heartstopper Volume 1 by Alice Oseman. Scholastic Graphix, 2020. 9781338617436.

So many people told me how much they love this series that I’ve been avoiding it for years. It felt like my expectations were just too high. How could it meet them? But I finally picked it up and it exceeded everything I’d heard. If you’re avoiding it or have only see the Netflix adaptation, pick up a copy. The art looks way more simple than it is, and the pacing of the story, the beginning of what I assume is an epic YA romance, is just perfect.

It opens with Charlie meeting Ben for a secret kiss in the school library, just after the New Year. But then he meets Nicholas, a boy in Year 11 (a year ahead of Charlie) and wow, it feels like love at first sight. Charlie seems to be the only out gay kid at school, and Nick is on the rugby team — they seem different but become friends. Charlie clearly wants more than friendship but thinks Nick is probably straight anyway. (At least his feelings for Nick push Charlie to stop seeing Ben, who is still in the closet and doesn’t want anyone to know they’ve been seeing each other.) The whole will they or won’t they, is he or isn’t he of Charlie and Nick goes on for a while; Oseman does make Nick’s feelings for Charlie fairly clear, but not knowing how he’s going to deal with them really kept me on edge.