***Early copy as a bookseller***

I’ll probably do a longer review later, but this drops in the UK today and Americans have only a week to wait! So, I’ll give my two cents now.

I’m a middle-aged lady who reads many, many things including YA and graphic novels and I was swept up into this series a few months back, read all five available because I find that Oseman has written the most endearing characters to ever grace a graphic novel, maybe any novel. I absolutely love Charlie and Nick and want to hang out with them all day, despite the sometimes saccharine/preachy world and the simplistic plots (which are both intentional, I believe, to create a safe space on the page for young LGBTQ+ readers–just not so much for me).

By the final book (yes, this is the final book in the series), Oseman has returned from her writing break to do a crazy-daunting task, and that is wrap up a veeeeery popular series with beloved characters (and a TV series to movie, to boot). I can’t imagine the pressure. But she seems very happy with the result, and I think her readers will largely be happy, as well (except that they have to leave these characters here). Volume 6 did feel a little sparse with text (sometimes it even felt that way visually with the arrangement of the text on the page). And it stays true to its almost-utopia feel (even with the realistic struggles with teens). There are some cultural moments that won’t make quite as much sense to American readers (like the drinking practices and law in England), and I found these 16-year-olds to read more like 18+ (which tracks for YA). I once again find it a little awkward when teens get more intimate (which is most pronounced in book 6–this is your warning, parents, that the intimacy dials/ages way up for the final book) because I am an advanced adult (my problem, not hers), but I once again couldn’t put the book down (walk away from Charlie and Nick) and finished it essentially in one sitting. Sigh.

The whole series, beginning to end, was a delight to read.

NOTE: I read volumes four and five in between the last review of the series and this one. The France one was probably my least favorite, but no book in this series goes below a 4-star, for me. They’re all (figuratively) bright and accessible, easy to read and immersive, with just the most enjoyable of characters at a vulnerable point in their imperfect lives.