Comics Will Break Your Heart – Review

How can such a cute concept AND cover disappoint me so much?

Title: Comics Will Break Your Heart
Author: Faith Erin Hicks
Genre: YA Contemporary
Publication Date: February 12th, 2019
Ratings: ♥

Goodreads Synopsis:

Miriam’s family should be rich. After all, her grandfather was the co-creator of smash-hit comics series The TomorrowMen. But he sold his rights to the series to his co-creator in the 1960s for practically nothing, and now that’s what Miriam has: practically nothing. And practically nothing to look forward to either-how can she afford college when her family can barely keep a roof above their heads? As if she didn’t have enough to worry about, Miriam’s life gets much more complicated when a cute boy shows up in town . . . and turns out to be the grandson of the man who defrauded Miriam’s grandfather, and heir to the TomorrowMen fortune.

In her endearing debut novel, cartoonist Faith Erin Hicks pens a sensitive and funny Romeo and Juliet tale about modern romance, geek royalty, and what it takes to heal the long-festering scars of the past (Spoiler Alert: love).

Review

This book has a case of a great plot idea (and adorable cover), but terrible execution. When I read the synopsis, I was so in. While I’m not a comic book reader myself, I’m very much a proud member of that kind of nerd community. I think a book discussing the importance of something like a comic book and how it effects your whole life is a fascinating concept to explore. This just wasn’t it. This felt very much like a debut novel, almost as if full scenes weren’t included in the story. Time was all over the place, I kept forgetting that all the way up to more than halfway through the book, we still technically still hadn’t made it to summer break. Why were they never at school? All the characters and their backstories were just barely explored. The author would mention something as if we should have already known a specific plot or character attribute, when it was actually never told to us. I never got Romeo and Juliet dynamic that was mentioned in the synopsis.

The writing was very juvenile. These kids could have easily been just starting high school, not going into their senior year. I believe dialogue can make or break a piece of writing and the dialogue in this felt so forced. There was no flow between the characters. I think the author took off more than she could chew. She tried to tackle things like classism and the hate-to-love trope, but never got there. All in all, I was really disappointed with this read and it made me sad.

I was sent this e-arc from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.