This is a collection of comic strips featuring the wonderful friendship between Scout and Andy, two queer folk living through their 20s in the current time (The past few years, I suppose). I enjoyed it and found it hilarious and fun, as well as political and poignant (in a light and comedic manner), and representative of many facets of being queer in this day and age.

I liked the references to the times, and well, there was an underlying theme of growth for the characters, throughout the collection, which I appreciate so much. It's not v prominent, and I admit I only noticed it after several breaks since I started reading it in mid-December last year, but there is a noticeable improvement in Scout and Andy (and their friends too) if you compare the first few comics to the later ones.

I also appreciate that the comics center queer women and enby folks the most. There was scarcely any men in there (there's + rep of trans men were in there, I think?) and I found it refreshing.

Along with the LGBTQIAP+ themes, it contains mostly relatable aspects of being in your 20s in the 2010s (which I was), and the joy of having friends who Get It. It felt like I was just hanging out with my friends, (which, honestly, I kind of miss and need rn), that's why I found this graphic novel really entertaining. I recommend it to those who are looking to find light and quick comics, and those who want to read about fun queer adventures and misadventures.
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*The eARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley for free in exchange for an honest review. It doesn't affect my opinion of the book. Thank you.

This book was a delight to read! I loved it through and through and I can't speak highly enough about it. The art was beautiful and the story has a near universal appeal.

Lovely art style and lovely story! I really enjoyed this one. A quick read but a sweet one and especially good to see trans rep as a fellow trans guy.

I absolutely loved Grease Bats! It was weird and hilarious and heartwarming and uncomfortable at the same time.
The art was adorable and the short form comics made it really fast and easy to read. It was super addictive and I couldn't stop until it was suddenly over.
The characters are all flawed and well rounded albeit very quirky and over the top at times.
I couldn't recommend this gem of a queer comic enough!

I received an arc from netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Arc provided by MetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Grease Bats is a graphic novel formatted into various strips. Each strip has a main topic or storyline, some of them effect future ones.

We follow Andy who is genderqueer and Scout who is lesbian as they live their lives and face the problems life throws their way.

The best thing about this graphic novel is the abundance of rep is has. Every main character is apart of the LGBT+ community. Whether the rep is good or not is up for people who identify similarly to decide.

Now... as you can see I gave this novel one stars, so it’s safe to say I was very disappointed.

The art style is not the best, but I think i wouldn’t have minded it, if it wasn’t for the absolutely dreadful typeface. The speech bubbles are so messy and a lot of the time it’s difficult to tell who’s talking (especially since all the characters have very similar personalities...)

For me, there’s not one likeable character here. I think the author was going for laughs, especially with Andy, but it all just fell flat. The result being that all the characters come across as super toxic. This is one friend group I would NOT want to be apart of.

I wasn’t a fan of the “comic strip” format. Each strip felt too disconnected, even when things that happened in previous strips were brought up in later ones

Finally, it was just boring. I didn’t really care about any of the characters, even though I wanted to. It was a struggle to finish :/

This book is a collection of comics about two best friends, Andy and Scout. They are both genderqueer. Throughout the comics, they go through a few years of adventures. These include, holidays such as Halloween, lots of partying, and even camping.

These characters were so funny. Andy was overdramatic a lot of the time, but also funny. They wore message tanks all the time, and were always drinking and looking for a party. Scout was more serious, which balanced out Andy’s personality.

They also had some other friends who made appearances throughout the comics. Each of the friends were so different, though they identified as genderqueer. It shows that just because they have similar gender identities, they had different ways of expressing their feelings. They all had different ideas of how they should behave, so they had to figure out what they wanted in life.

I really enjoyed these comics!

Thank you BOOM! Studios for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This collection of stories made me feel like my punk 20 year old self again, hating anyone who didn’t match my level of gayness. I loved the artwork, relatability, and easiness of this collection

I wasn't 100% sure what to expect when I requested this. I figured I'd like it because I am all about the genderqueer characters. What I wasn't expecting was a graphic novel that was both poignant and snortingly funny. I love that this tells a story but is also digestable in little snippets. The art was superb and I really felt like I was there with the characters.

Full of short sequences detailing a whole bunch of issues women and gender queer people deal with. Lots of information on relationships, sex, first times, and just dealing with life in general. Andy is a little intense and their advice usually consisted of "have gay orgies" which I didn't find super helpful. Honestly a lot of their stories were about how they've made a mistake again. I wasn't a fan of their character. Scout was okay, but their emotions were a lot and even though everyone talked about confronting their emotions and dealing with them, it happened very little. I think Taylor and Ari were my favorite characters, Taylor because of the constant anxiety of not having things done and Ari for her almost 100% introvertedness.

This is a pretty positive, love yourself, be yourself, kind of graphic novel. The black and white line drawn art didn't really work for me, and I disliked the text being hand written, or at least appearing hand written. I don't mind it for a few pieces, but almost 300 pages of written text is a lot.

A book I would consider recommending for someone trying to figure out the dating world in the queer community.

Copy provided by NetGalley.

I love love loved reading this. The characters felt so real and funny and I loved learning about them and seeing their interactions with each other. I loved the well-timed and well-balanced commentary on queer life placed throughout—it didn't feel forced or unrealistic, but essential and careful. The art style is almost absentminded, which I really enjoyed.

I think there were a few titles of individual strips that were mislabeled ("Sir" and "Summer Exes") but other than that there were no obvious edits.

Great queer graphic novel with little vignettes about queer life and life as a millennial that will appeal to many readers. Such a funny and great read!

This is an excellent comic and I love it. Scout and Andy and Ari and Gwen and Taylor are all great. I like the page where it says "tag yourself" because duh of course I'm going to. I'm Ari + Taylor btw. Reading this as an e-book, I was very surprised when I got to the end - I wanted more! I really liked this.

The moment I read the tagline ‘so no one told you life was gonna be this gay!’, I knew I had to get my hands on Grease Bats. It’d already popped up on my Goodreads feed enough times to catch my attention. Was diving into it completely blind the best idea? Possibly not. I didn’t realise this was not a bindup of a popular webcomic strip, rather than a traditional graphic novel… but it won me over with its hilarious cast.

Friendship to the max! Found family plays a huge role in these comics, which I loved. It was refreshing seeing a group of friends who, thanks to their different life circumstances, had found solace in their own queer family. All of the character were so unique and individual with strong personalities, it was a lot of fun seeing their dynamics unfold.

Sex, drugs & alcohol-fuelled drama. The editor said in the introduction that they love Grease Bats because every reader can relate to at least one of the characters. They’re a Scout and I am – without a doubt – an Ari… which explains my slight dilemma. I struggle to get into the ‘plot’ of this because there wasn’t really a plot. It was more like 300 pages of Scout and Andy abusing alcohol to cope with their dating problems. I don’t believe you have to relate to a character or even like a character to enjoy their story, and you definitely don’t have to agree with their decisions. However, reading over 300 pages of slightly repetitive strips about clubbing and substance abuse was a bit too much for me. I was literally Ari when she told Andy off for their unhealthy coping mechanisms. Obviously, this is a Me problem. I know Andy & Scout’s shenanigans are realistic and probably relatable for a lot of readers. It’s not something I actually want to criticise the story for doing but it did impact my enjoyment.

Important discussions. There were a lot of important discussions, though! My favourite was definitely the one where Taylor and Gwen talked about being a ‘good’ advocate. Taylor felt guilty for not attending protests but Gwen talked about how there are a thousand different ways you can show your support for a cause, no matter your circumstances. There was also some fantastic commentary on dysphoria, misgendering, and dealing with queermisic family.

The art style. Bongiovanni’s style as a whole was not my favourite and it affected my enjoyment more than I expected. Black and white styles aren’t my go-to but it wasn’t the lack of colour that bothered me. The rough, pencil-sketch looked like the hand-drawn comics you draw for your friends during particular dull history classes. It was quirky and unique for sure but the rawness was easily mistaken for being drafted, rather than complete. I personally enjoy the elaborate, detailed art style of someone like Sana Takeda or the cutesy pastel style of Katie O’Neill.

The handwriting was also messy – messy enough to be illegible at times – and the use of haphazard lines instead of dialogue boxes made it difficult to follow the character’s conversations.

Overall? This achieved its purpose of being a quirky comic about queerness, friendship and navigating your 20s. It’s a mix of Sarah’s Scribbles and Giant Days, and I’d recommend it for fans of both or anyone looking to brighten their day.

Representation: Scout (mc) is a lesbian; Andy (mc) is trans, genderqueer & polyamorous; Ari (sc) is aroace & a trans girl; Gwen (sc) is bisexual; Taylor (sc) a qpoc.

Trigger warnings for sexual harassment, alcohol consumption, alcohol abuse, recreational drug use, cheating, queermisia, transmisia, bimisia, lesbomisia, misgendering (discussed in detail & op, multiple scenes), and dysphoria.

I am not the intended audience for this, I think, and am perhaps not properly able to appreciate it. I'm sure it will be great for the right folks! I am very grateful to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to explore this book, however.

✨ 2 / 5 ✨

My Goodreads review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2998801151

This book definitely had some relatable, funny and endearing moments but overall I just found it boring. This was a collection of events in the life of these two friends. I like a book with plots rather than collections better so this was definitely a me problem. I also wasn't the biggest fan of the art. Overall, it was hard to muster the effort to continue reading this. I kept waiting to love these characters but it just did not click and did not happen. This was unfortunate but hey, that’s life.

this is such a nice collection of stories about this two queer girls and their love life, it's so real and funny!!
IT WOULD MAKE A GREAT TV SHOW <3

As a collected comic, while the characters and general theme are continuous, there is no central plot. In fact, we get a number of short plots that are never fully resolved. Some elements are just ideas, moments of frustration expressed visually. They are problems that have no fix, just a verbalization of pain or fear or worries.. For the person not a part of that world we get moments of both "oh, we're all alike" and "I can't judge if I'm not a part of that world>"

DNF'ing at page 31. These comics are fine, but I just feel kind of "meh" about them. They're in a funnies-style strip format, which I personally find hard to invest in. Some of what I read did make me chuckle, though, and I do love the concept of a queer-centered funnies strip.

Firstly, I love that this graphic novel had so much representation and that, combined with the fact that the cover is cute as heck, made me initially interested in this.

Sadly, though, it just wasn't for me. I don't like the art style AT ALL. I thought the inside would look like the cover and it was definitely NOT that. I just couldn't get into the story either.

I’m a massive comics and graphic novels fan but I’m usually not the biggest fan of collections of comic strips as they tend to feel repetitive and stale after a while, especially if you read the entire thing in one sitting. However, Grease Bats didn’t feel that way in the slightest! This is a hilarious collection full of extremely relatable (There were multiple times I stopped and thought “Oh wow. That’s ME.” and wanted to share the panels on Twitter or start carrying printouts of the panels and just handing them to people when asked to tell someone about myself.) slice of life moments in the lives of self-professed “gay disasters.” But that’s not to say there isn’t any depth to this collection. On the contrary, the comic strips explore complex topics like identity, microaggressions, mental health and a myriad of other topics in a poignant yet funny manner.

If you’re looking for something funny but deep, gay, and intersectional, you should definitely pick this up!