This is lowkey advertised as a ghost story but it's the lowkey part that you should pay attention bc a ghost we do see but literally for one panel & the story itself tries, I suppose, but is neither really creepy nor frightening. It works a little better as a story abt struggling w mental illness but even there it's nothing to write home about. The characters feel flat & not exactly believable so you end up not caring much for their well-being anyway. Not even the art saves this graphic novel since it seems kind of rushed & really only there to tell the story as fast as possible. Which wasn't actually fast at all - that's what I had the biggest problem with!! The whole thing is so slow paced, we get to the middle almost before anything interesting happens & even then it's not gripping enough to hold your attention.

Seems like a shame, this could have been a cool story if only given more care.

A little slow to get anywhere, but overall, I really enjoyed the story.

The main character was highly relatable. Going in, I did not know much about the story, but her depression is something I can understand. She was so harsh to some of the other characters. That was in part to her depression, but I honestly felt it was overdone a little. I felt sorry for the person she was really harsh toward. I understand depression can make you do things you don't mean, but this is just how I felt when I read those parts.

I enjoyed her growing friendship with her coworkers at the museum.

The story was super slow. I liked that for the most part, but I really did not like all the time skips. I felt like there were huge chunks of the story I wasn't being told.

The artwork took some getting used to.

This was a quick read even at 280+ pages. I want to see what a print copy looks like, as I did not care for the art as it looked in the digital copy. The story felt a little jumbled, like I was missing pages. I think it could have been fleshed out more for a full novel. I didn't feel particularly invested in any of the characters.
Overall it was interesting material.

Obligatory Statement: I received this e-ARC from the publisher through NetGalley and this in no way affected my opinion of the book. 

This was a unique story about recovering from a mental breakdown, learning to love yourself, and a little paranormal mystery. 

The main character, Cel, is a very relatable bookish librarian who at the being of the story is recovering from a mental breakdown. Throughout the book, we witness her struggling with depression and her unwillingness to get help even though she knows that it will help her. Cel's depression is represented as the disease truly is and her fears about therapy are ones that many with depression and other mental illnesses share.  I loved all of the characters. There is Aba, the super posh museum director who I imagine has a British accent and drinks brandy on the weekends in his massive home library, Holly, the head librarian who helps Cel get adjusted to living in the Museum, and Gina, Holly's girlfriend as well as Cel's Boyfriend, Kyle. There is also the Museum Board which reminded me of the City Council from Welcome to Night Vale. 

Now for the paranormal aspect of the story, it is not super scary and the panels are creepy but I not in that horror movie, nightmarish creepy. And though Cel solved this one mystery, there is still a lot more to be said about where the story could go. One thing that I did not care for was the art style. It just did not do anything for me.

When Celeste loses her job as a librarian, she's willing to accept any new job, even one in a haunted museum. The more she dives into the archives, Celeste discovers the secrets of the museum's past, and begins to have dreams of a ghost who died there. She'll need the help of her new coworkers to uncover the truth about the ghost and the secretive museum board.

I was disappointed in this comic. The artwork isn't that good, and looks as though it were just thrown together. The story fell flat for me. It takes a long time for the plot to get going, and the mystery didn't have much to it. I felt like a lot of plot points were unnecessarily repeated again and again. The pacing of the story was odd, and there were many plot holes and unresolved questions at the end.

It's a pretty good comic, but nothing special.

Disclaimer: I received an ecopy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review. All the opinions stated here are my own true thoughts and are not influenced by anyone.

This beautifully drawn graphic novel brings representation to mental illness while also being a fun, haunted library/museum ghost story. I love how more and more comics have diverse casts. The character designs for each of the characters are wonderful.

I also really enjoyed the afterword and Weir's own personal story. This story was very close to her and that is evident in the detail put into it.

I give this graphic novel a 4/5. If you like ghost stories, creepy old asylums, and libraries, but also want a story with heart, you'll love this book.

I wanted to love this book, because it combines archival work and graphic novels, but it really wasn't all there for me. I liked the cast of characters mostly. Celeste, Holly, Gina, and Aba were all really great. Well-rounded for a fairly short graphic novel. The plot, however, was not. Maybe it was just too rushed for me, especially towards the end. I feel like we don't really find out much about the girl. Much more haunting could have ensued. Overall, three stars.

I wouldn’t say this book is semi-autobiographical, but the author does know about mental illness and archiving medical history.

Cel, the main character, has such a job, and the mental illness, but she loves the structure of doing this sort of work.

If you pick up and only read the first few pages, you might say, “what the heck is going on,” which is what I did, but then I got past that, and realized that this was a pretty cool little story of the bad things that happened to people of mental illness in the bad-old-days.

Well written, and it shows that the author know from where these expereinces and feelings come from.

You have to be in the mood, a bit, because this is quick, but not easy. There is pain and sadness, but homor too.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

I think in the end the biggest surprise for me with this book is that it's being pitched at a junior audience, which is a pity given its ghost story trappings - but that's not to say it's a bad read. I have to say I really liked my time with Cel, the young woman with a lovely set of funky/cute clobber and a dumb-ass hipster boyfriend, who takes a job and lodgings at a never-visited medical museum, and ends up investigating what seems to be a haunting. It's a really rich book, one that hints at taking in so many threads - a romance here, a bit of lesbian exploration there, a new kind of metaphor for the damage the damaged mind can cause (for Cel has had mental health issues in the past, and there's the possibility the 'ghost' is her damaging her own environs, whether wilfully or otherwise)...

What we get is a snappy book that only really forces itself to appeal to just teens by way of its thick, chunky line and gaudy colouring. The adult on the commute won't find much favour with that. But in nudging the reader towards the ways it could have gone that I suggested, and yet ploughing its own furrow the read is a very good one. I found that, given the richness in both character and set-up, the ending was a little weak, but it was a great debut novel from this author/artist partnership. This can be counted as a strong four stars, as it's a compelling read.

Cel Walden is having some mental health troubles. As a result, she loses her job at the library, but soon finds gainful employment as an archivist at the Logan Museum, a little-known repository of medical history. The new job is not quite what Cel imagined it might be: she's required to keep odd hours, obey a byzantine set of rules regarding her comings and goings, deal with a uniquely abrasive (and oddly secretive) boss, and, on top of all that, the museum (and her new apartment) both seem to be haunted.

Though Holly, the museum's resident librarian, is friendly and accommodating, Cel finds that the other stressors of her job combine to aggravate her already fragile mental state -- and it doesn't help that the ghost who is haunting her seems to have undergone serious mental health troubles of her own.

As a trained archivist and practicing librarian, the setting of this book was delightful for me (and will be even more interesting for folks in the medical history field). The characters here are given space to slowly reveal themselves, grow, and change, and the central mystery surrounding the archives and their restless ghost messily parallel Cel's own mental health struggles and their eventual "resolution" at book's end.

A wonderfully drawn, delightfully diverse, and extremely compassionate story. Definitely an instant favorite for me.

Thank you, NetGalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Archival Quality quickly wrapped me up in its storyline and took me along for the ride. I was intrigued by the slow discovery of what is going on. The story was beautifully paced with well-developed characters that made the story even more enjoyable to read.

This story was an excellent ghost story filled with deeper meanings about life. Throughout the story, Cel grows and shows just how strong she is despite struggling with her mental illness. It was truly refreshing and exciting to see a character like Cel.

Oy....
Where to even start with this....
I guess I will start with the most obvious thing - the art in this does not match the story AT ALL. The art is VERY juvenile, which gives the graphic novel the immediate appearance of being something that should be aimed at teens or even tweens - but (despite the fantasy elements of the story) the themes in the story itself are way too adult for the audience that might actually pick it up.
The protagonist is an adult woman suffering from diagnosed clinical depression so severe that it has cost her a job, since she was incapable of actually DOING her job (we actually see her sitting in a closet at her job crying and hiding) and yet she refuses help from not only from her family and friends, but also from doctors (choosing not to take medication because she's "afraid" of it... instead she decides that what is best for her is to take on an even MORE difficult and demanding job, and torpedo the heck out of her FIVE YEAR relationship with a guy who is not only the nicest dude on the planet, but also genuinely cares about her. (She breaks up with her because he is worried about her and wants her to get help).
Then we through in the freaking ghost of a lobotomized former patient of a horrible turn of the century asylum and nothing here makes ANY SENSE!

Also, not to be a total nit-picker, but I am a librarian - a REAL ONE with a DEGREE, and it annoyed the absolute CRAP out of me that not one of the characters were AT ALL qualified to do their jobs, (two of the main characters are college drop-outs who somehow become a museum archivist and a librarian???? REALLY?) and the ONE person who actually finished college tells everyone that he sucks at doing research? AY DIOS MIO!

I received this for free on NetGalley.

Basically, this is about a girl who takes a new job at a (supposedly haunted) museum. She then uncovers a dark secret about this museum and decides to take action.

I went into this graphic novel expecting a ghost heavy storyline. It didn't deliver. The plot focused on the archiving job itself as well as Cel (the main character) struggling with her mental health. Also, the cover shows a white ghost girl. This image was not used in the actual book. So that was slightly misleading. There was also a mystery involving the Board at the museum. I thought that added a lot to the plot, but the conclusion of that mystery was not satisfying for me.

As for the art, I (to be harsh) hated it. I much prefer when art is detailed and has vivid colors. The colors in this were muted (which could add to the supernatural theme, but in this case, did not) and unappealing. I also did not like the way that the characters were drawn. I prefer a less cartoon-like appearance.

While this was not what I expected it would be, it was still a solid read. I went through it in about an hour. None of the characters were memorable and neither was the story. Unfortunately, this won't be sticking with me.

A fun graphic novel for junior audiences. Good story and pacing!

*** Thanks to Netgalley and the author for giving me an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.***


I thought it was a pretty good graphic novel. There was haunting museums , a ghost friendship and there was a little of mental health issues, that in the end gave a pretty good message. Hope I can get my hands in other novels by this author. Also the afterword I think is called was pretty interesting as well.

I love the story, but the illustration is lack luster.

Archival Quality is a fluffy tale of mental disorder (depression, bi polar) with a mystery tacked on. As such, it is quirky but also heavy and I'm not quite sure balance was consistently reached between the two extremes. You'd think that the book would attempt realism but nearly the whole story was a rather silly and random urban fantasy. That made it hard to really get into the characters or plot.

Story: Cel needs a job and so applies and gets a position at a mysterious museum, under a mysterious curate, and with a mysterious new living condition in the museum. Since she suffers from depression issues, she's desperate from the job and readily agrees to move in to the small apartment reserved for employees who work the night shift. It's a strange job cataloging images from medical experiments done when the building was an asylum in the 1920s. But when a girl comes to her in her dreams and begs her for help, Cel is drawn into the supernatural mystery of the museum.

There are a LOT of hints throughout that the museum/asylum has a bad past and that something is very wrong in the present. From her boss' continually odd attitude to the weird images she is scanning to digital. We're supposed to be drawn into the mystery but I have to admit that there were so many 'clues' that thunked with the subtlety of an anvil that I was expecting a much bigger and more original 'hook' than was given. The whole ending was rushed and felt very anticlimactic.

The art is servicable but the potato bodies/facial features didn't leave much for nuance. As well, there were several scenes illustrated in a way that were very hard to figure out what was happening. I had to reread several times and still didn't understand what the author/artist was trying to convey in that scene. It distanced me from a story that was already somewhat disenfranchising considering our heroine spends most of the time arguing with/annoying/frustrating nearly every other character in the story. So while I understand she has mental issues, I found it really hard to even like her or want her to succeed.

Most problematic is that Cel felt far too much like a Mary Sue - despite her bad temper and offputting personality, people just love her to pieces and want to help her. Of course, she'll rebuff them all and assume they just don't understand her. But from the long suffering boyfriend to the ghost, they just keep putting up with her inexplicably. The world revolved around Cel and people were only in it so that it was important to her.

The mystery itself took forever to realize and then suddenly went from 10 to 100 within a few pages. Then the story was over and we weren't really given a mystery worth solving or any kind of satisfying denouement. It felt like the author was more concerned with the Mary Sue aspects than actually fleshing out a supernatural mystery. As a result, everything else except for Cel felt underdeveloped.

The story is easy to follow other than confusing panel layouts. My best advice with this story is to go in with an emphasis on Cel's feelings/mental state and not on the mystery or her friends/boyfriend. Because everything else felt as ghostly as our mystery girl haunting Cel's dreams. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

Thank you to NetGalley and Oni Press for setting me up with this advanced copy of Archival Quality. I am not often drawn to graphic novels, but when I saw this one, I was instantly intrigued.
This was a lovely story about a girl struggling with her mental health while she tries to manage her life accordingly. Cel is diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder, but she is too afraid to take her prescribed medications or seek treatment. This leads to losing her job, and struggling to live her day-to-day life. Enter: The Logan Museum – it’s haunted, but it’s got a job opening where you don’t need a degree. I absolutely loved seeing the mix between contemporary/mental illness rep. meets YA/fantasy ghost story. We do not get enough fantasy stories with diverse characters.
The entire cast was incredibly diverse, but it read organically. We got biracial/black representation, mental illness representation, and LGBTQ+ representation. However, it did not come off as “TRYING” to be diverse. The story was all-consuming, the art was absolutely beautiful, and I would definitely suggest this graphic novel to anyone looking to read a little more diversely, or who is looking for a fun and spooky read. I've already told my three closest friends that they need to preorder this graphic novel. Can't wait to get my hands on a physical copy! 4.5/5