Reading Recommendations: Standalone Graphic Novels
I love reading and reviewing manga/comics on this blog so today I’m compiling some book recommendations of standalone graphic novels! Enjoy these picks!
Synopsis: Hark! A Vagrant is an uproarious romp through history and literature seen through Kate Beaton. No era or tome emerges unscathbed as Beaton rightly skewers the Western world’s revolutionaries, leaders, sycophants, and suffragists while equally honing her wit on the hapless heroes, heroines, and villains of the best-loved fiction.
This novel is full of comedic comic shorts about history, literature, pop culture, and much more. It reads pretty quickly and each comic ranges from parodies, puns, and even poking fun at historical figures and events. I enjoyed the cute and quirky art style. It reminds me of doodles in a notebook! I also appreciated that some of the comics have annotations to give it a clearer background and explanation.
Synopsis: After years of homeschooling, Maggie is starting high school. It’s pretty terrifying.Maggie’s big brothers are there to watch her back, but ever since Mom left it just hasn’t been the same.Besides her brothers, Maggie’s never had any real friends before. Lucy and Alistair don’t have lots of friends either. But they eat lunch with her at school and bring her along on their small-town adventures.
Missing mothers…distant brothers…high school…new friends… It’s a lot to deal with. But there’s just one more thing. MAGGIE IS HAUNTED.
A interesting coming of age story mixed with the paranormal genre. Maggie, the main character, grew up with a crew of brothers and is dealing with entering a public high school (she’s been home-schooled her entire life) and id coping with the absence of her mother. She also happens to be haunted by ghosts. I thought the story was very relatable to a wide audience, since Maggie feels like a “fish out of water”.
Synopsis: Starting at a new school is scary, even more so with a giant hearing aid strapped to your chest! At her old school, everyone in Cece’s class was deaf. Here she is different. She is sure the kids are staring at the Phonic Ear, the powerful aid that will help her hear her teacher. Too bad it also seems certain to repel potential friends.
Then Cece makes a startling discovery. With the Phonic Ear she can hear her teacher not just in the classroom, but anywhere her teacher is in school — in the hallway… in the teacher’s lounge… in the bathroom! This is power. Maybe even superpower! Cece is on her way to becoming El Deafo, Listener for All. But the funny thing about being a superhero is that it’s just another way of feeling different… and lonely. Can Cece channel her powers into finding the thing she wants most, a true friend?
A cute, heartwarming and informative novel about deaf culture from the own author’s childhood experiences (ownvoices). I loved the artwork. I liked how bright the colors were (for the artwork) and the diagrams that help readers to understand certain aspects of the story (ex. the components of the hearing aids Cece wears).This book offered a glance into deaf culture and while it was a major part of the story I also liked seeing pivotal moments in her life.
Synopsis: Marjorie Glatt feels like a ghost. A practical thirteen year old in charge of the family laundry business, her daily routine features unforgiving customers, unbearable P.E. classes, and the fastidious Mr. Saubertuck who is committed to destroying everything she’s worked for.
Wendell is a ghost. A boy who lost his life much too young, his daily routine features ineffective death therapy, a sheet-dependent identity, and a dangerous need to seek purpose in the forbidden human world.
When their worlds collide, Marjorie is confronted by unexplainable disasters as Wendell transforms Glatt’s Laundry into his midnight playground, appearing as a mere sheet during the day. While Wendell attempts to create a new afterlife for himself, he unknowingly sabotages the life that Marjorie is struggling to maintain.
I loved the story so much! It was a short story, but it was heartfelt and moving. My only complaint is that I wish it was a bit longer so that it could expand on some of the characters and themes presented in the plot. I liked how the book talked about grieving, losing a losing one, and finding peace.
Synopsis: When the heroic princess Amira rescues the kind-hearted princess Sadie from her tower prison, neither expects to find a true friend in the bargain. Yet as they adventure across the kingdom, they discover that they bring out the very best in the other person. They’ll need to join forces and use all the know-how, kindness, and bravery they have in order to defeat their greatest foe yet: a jealous sorceress, who wants to get rid of Sadie once and for all.
Join Sadie and Amira, two very different princesses with very different strengths, on their journey to figure out what happily ever after really means — and how they can find it with each other.
I loved everything about this story and it had me hooked from the beginning. The characters were interesting and the adventures the go on are exciting. And the two princesses fall in love, which are so cute! The artwork definitely matches the tone of this book and the drawings are so colorful and cute! My only complaint about this book is that it was way too short and I wish it was longer.
Synopsis: Yumiko was born in Japan but has made a life in London, losing herself in its cosmopolitan bustle. She has a gallery show of her art, a good job, and a good guy she plans to marry. The culture she grew up in seems very far away—until her brother phones with the news that their father has died. Yumiko returns to Tokyo and finds herself immersed in the rituals of death while also plunged into the rituals of life—fish bars, bullet trains, pagodas—as she confronts the question of where her future really lies.
Just So Happens is a beautifully written and drawn graphic novel about grief and finding yourself. I loved Obata’s attention to detail in his artwork and the vibrant watercolors he uses to make the story picturesque, but realistic. The thing I most enjoyed about this book is that it offers an immigrant’s perspective of living in a place separate from your native home.
Synopsis: What if you can leap tall buildings and defeat alien monsters with your bare hands, but you buy your capes at secondhand stores, and have a weakness for kittens, and a snarky comment from Skeptical Guy can ruin a whole afternoon? Cartoonist Faith Erin Hicks brings her skills in character design and sharp, charming humor to the trials and tribulations of a young, superhero battling monsters both supernatural and mundane in an all-too-ordinary world.
This was such a cute and lighthearted story. The illustrations are vibrant and match the overall tone that the book is striving for. I felt that superhero girl is a relatable character as she not only struggles with her self-identity as an underdog superhero, but as a civilian trying to get through life one day at a time.
That concludes my reading recommendations for standalone! What books do you recommend or what are your favorites? Comment below!
