I love that the main character loves gothic romance books and then ends up in a gothic setting. I love that this is lighthearted, amusing, and mysterious. I wanted to read this because I saw the amusing cover and how the description says her great passion is gothic romance novels, and she saves a guy. I love the she saves him rather than the female being the one being saved. I also love that the main character is a person of color because we don’t get that a lot in ya graphic novels. This makes me want to read gothic classics and I love how she predicted what the manor would be like based on her love of novels. 

I was enjoying the beginning and how the story was going. I didn’t really like how the ‘bile’ taking over the land was all of a sudden a big conflict, I generally want more time with the characters before we start all of a sudden dealing with a conflict that lasts a long time. I like the characters a lot and was enjoying when they were wandering around and in the manor before the bile showed up. I just don’t like when in stories the conflict abruptly takes over the whole plot and then by the time it’s fixed the book only has a few pages left and that’s what happened here. I liked the ending, it was nice and made me smile. I love that this was a lighthearted and funny story, it is so hard for me to find stories like that. I loved the main character and the three brothers, and all of the bunnies that showed up. I just wish their time together had been a little longer before and after the bile conflict. Also, why must it be the word bile?! I would like to read more from this author!

Cute concept and a good, cozy fall read.

This book is quite silly in concept but also very fun. The idea is that Haley, the protagonist obsessed with Gothic romances, ends up in the pocket dimension that protects our universe from a universe of evil - and this pocket dimension is inexplicably Gothic romance-themed. It makes fun of Gothic romance tropes a lot, and thought I got the major ideas, I'm not huge into Gothic romances so I'm sure I missed a lot of the trope-based jokes. The art was fun (although the extreme lack of detail on the faces compared to everything else felt a bit off to me), and I even laughed out loud a few times. Despite the purported seriousness of the plot (pocket dimension being attacked by an evil force that will consume our universe if it succeeds), none of it feels all that dangerous or impactful. Perhaps it's because Haley's obsession with Gothic literature makes this story feel fictional even within itself. But everything feels very fake and relentlessly silly. Not necessarily in a bad way - it was fun and I enjoyed it. But it was really hard to get actually emotionally invested because I just couldn't manage to forget it's just a silly little story. 

It was cute

Super cute and fun! I loved how this played with genre, and how Haley used genre conventions to her advantage, and rejected her assigned role in the narrative. All the characters were fun and creatively written and I loved the relationships between them. The world building was also cool and I loved how it dipped into sci-fi. I also loved the art and the character designs! They were all so different and interesting to look at.

[Content note: there are two characters who appear briefly at the start and end, and are intended to be bullies, but their insults include saying, "She's weird/a nerd lol" and it honestly feels like such a caricature that I have a hard time taking it seriously. They clearly intend it to be mean, but they're so incompetent that it's really just like ". . .okay?" and you move on.]

I would categorize this as fun! Maybe a little longer than it needed to be, but there were so many great lines in here. And the art complemented the story really well! If you're looking for a fun, entertaining, funny graphic novel, I would definitely recommend this one. You'll fly through it and have a ball while doing so!

This is adorable!