The first half of the book we're introduced to our main character, a young woman called Catrin, who is alive in the future. This means she has a Cronenbergian pod-thing (with what looks like pubic hair growing out of it), that's a new kind of operating system, which allows the user to create the perfect mate in A.I. form, and it also allows access to a virtual realm called The Garden, in which one can partake in endless cyberboinking.

So Catrin creates Rhion, her perfect A.I. and there was much rejoicing. Lots of blinking, lots of neediness from Catrin, and then Rhion decides she wants to be elsewhere and leaves Catrin. Apparently an A.I. leaving is very rare, but it can happen.

Catrin doesn't cope very well, so now the story turns into one about obsession, and to see a person lose their mind. Problem is, at this point it's kind of crucial that the reader sort of likes and identifies with the main character, and feels sorry for her. And I found I didn't like her at all - worse, I didn't care about her at all.

Which is when the second half of the book kicks in. This reads like attending a poetry workshop, and everyone reads out loud the work they've written that week, one or two pages, and there's this one guy who dumps thirty pages of typed poetry on the table, and he's going to read ALL of it.

It's all devastatingly heartfelt, and painfully earnest, and it just sort of bounces off your head, because there is no connection, there doesn't seem to be any direction, there is no way in. It doesn't help that the process of Catrin going off the deep end feels unconvincing, it seems hurried and clichéd.

The book feels like a house with locked doors, and closed windows, curtains drawn. I can see some light behind the curtains, there's some movement, someone's put on a Joy Division record, but I can't find a way in.

This fell so short. The art was beautiful, it was what sold me along with the premise. The color palette was so cool and fit the sci-fi atmosphere perfectly. but the rest was just not it. I felt so removed from the story. Will probably forget about this in like 2 days.

Also why is this under Teens and YA on NetGalley? This is clearly adult. There's nudity and multiple explicit sex scenes.

I’m going with 2 1/2 stars rounded down. The art was stunning, but the storyline was confusing. Actually, I feel like this could be a grand metaphor for life and technology and whatnot, but I just can’t fully see it.

Anyway, it started off totally promising and I was really into it, but then things started to derail and get a bit weird... or a lot weird... By the end I was rereading pages because I kept thinking I must have missed something, but, like I said, the art is great throughout, I just couldn’t hang onto the story itself.

I may or may not try to read the next volume. And I also can’t recommend this one. I’m sure there will be lots of people who will be totally into this,... just not me...

Thanks to NetGalley and Aftershock Comics for giving me the opportunity to read this for my honest and unbiased opinion.

Will be posted on my blog and Amazon shortly.

I want to start by saying I found this in the YA/Teen section and the concept immediately had me requesting, because this sounds so cool, BUT this is not a teen book. The protagonist is 38 and this is a explicit graphic, graphic novel with the main protagonist spending a majority of her time nude, and if it was just that it be fine but there is ALOT of graphic sex scene and this is not for teens! IMO

Lonely Receiver is a graphic novel telling the raw story of being broken up with and the realities we face while we grieve through the idea of a highly technological world where you can have an AI company that is designed with you perfectly in mind, to be loyal and to love you forever no matter what. But then she leaves you after becoming more self aware. The beautiful images and colors help tell this heart break that so many of us go through, trying to get that person back, using our phone and technology to “stalk”, reach out to, find them even if they don’t want to be found. The use of the phone in this story, as a literal piece of you the person and the AI love that has gotten away was both difficult to follow and understand but also powerful as a parallel to the world we are in told and our cultures reliance and dependence on our phones.
The message was powerful and is a must read I can’t wait for the next installments and really wonder how this story will continue after that crazy ending!!

Thank you to @netgalley and @diamondbookdist for providing an EArc for my honest review.

This was such a fun ride!

This is totally a break/up horror novel that is so, SO weird. It felt like Riverdale meets Black Mirror.

If you like stories that make you scream WHAT IS HAPPENING?! Pick this up!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I didn't like this at all. I couldn't get into it. It's put under Teens and YA on Netgalley, it does not belong there. This is very much an adult comic. It has multiple scenes with nudity in it as well as explicit sex. I won't be recommending this in the future.

I'm really not sure how to feel about this book. It is absolutely mind-boggling and I feel like I missed so much. To start off, I was confused. For the first few pages, I didn't even know who was Catrin and who was Rhion. Then, I started to get a sense of the timing of the story and the characters, which really helped!

I did really enjoy Volumes 1 & 2. Volume 3 was pretty confusing, but I think I understood the gist of it (hopefully). But then, in Volumes 4 & 5, I was just lost. So lost. I had no idea what was happening to Catrin or where she was. I wish we could have been given more time and information needed to understand how the technology worked at the beginning, as I think this would have made the second half more easily understood. In fact, I didn't even realize the little fuzzy thing Catrin was holding was a Phylo Phone until the sketchbook at the end.

The artwork in this graphic novel was well-done and colorful, which was nice. However, this book was marked as "Teens & YA," which it certainly is not.

Visually stunning and compelling, with a really intriguing concept and storytelling device. This graphic novel is just the right level of speculative fiction mixed with psychological horror, body horror, and gore that makes it a perfect story in my eyes. A definite must for those still reeling from the pain of completing Tokyo Ghoul and Wilder Girls. Absolutely loved it.

This was a very odd graphic novel. It fert like a fever dream or a hallucination. I was confused for most of the book and what I wasn't confused over fell flat for me. This overall had a solid idea but it fell felt for me cause it was just to confusing. I am really disappointed cause I really wanted to like this graphic novel.

The descent into insanity is reminiscent of A Streetcar Named Desire — one of my favorite plays - though this is not based in the same trauma or past experiences as the play. This sort of plot (hero becomes villain - the young elites by marie lu or protagonist has trouble telling the difference between what is real and what is fake - we were liars by e. lockhart) is the best part of this graphic novel. I think the art was beautiful and the plot was great — though I was not super connected or invested in the fate of Catrin. Catrin is not the most sympathetic character. She clearly has attachment issues from the get go and tries to solve it with an AI companion, Rhion. It’s not surprising that it goes wrong — Catrin wants an AI to love only her and be with only her, but an AI is not only in one place at once because it’s part of the internet. That is all in the first few pages. The entire story feels like a whirlwind, it’s fast paced and doesn’t have any filler to take up space. Everything that is in the story seems like it is necessary and exactly where it should be.
The first few pages convinced me to stay for the plot, but i never really grew attached to any character (that’s why I deducted a star)
The relationship portrayed is not at all a healthy one— both the relationship between Catrin and herself and Catrin and Rhion — and though it is not portrayed as healthy I still would like to give that warning in case that is something that is triggering to you.

This whole graphic novel felt like a fever dream... I wasn't sure what was going on for 75% of the story which is unfortunate.

Hmmm... This has the drama, complexity and high concept of a tent-pole launch – you know, the one the publishers insist is the one you MUST read that month before all else – and yet isn't quite there. We're some time in the future, when genetic bio-mods are a thing, as are absolutely tripe fashions in clothes. Our heroine Catrin has one of the things this society is keen on – a kind of living phone, halfway between a plush sex toy and something from "Naked Lunch". She's also gone the whole hog and had this phone thing turned into a cyborg, semi-living, all-AI, lover. But the AI has woken up, and what to our human point of view is a hyper-active mind has made too many connections elsewhere, and decided to move on. This makes the Burroughs plush thing not work, but it also makes Catrin not work either, as she slowly but surely falls apart.

I think that where this failed for me is the way the book was too much into its concepts to really let us see the human in the story. For sure portray a ckuffed-up world where integrating with a cyborg, and having a poem of a password that takes you into a sex zone kind of alternative reality kind of thing, is all part of nature, but that is so rarefied it means we can't see the bit of us in Catrin's character that we're also supposed to be interested in. And when you get a shadow creature in her flat/phone/mind/whatever kind-of dialoguing with her in bad verse that makes a haiku seem verbose, we're also seeing another layer to the book's high-falutin' ideas and not to its character.

Still, we get the most vividly graphic look at cyber-sex, which again in this world is taken to a very bizarre extreme. But I think I wanted a book that took an everywoman, such as you or I might meet or love or be, and put her into a downward spiral helter-skeltering towards a place lacking love and showing her with corresponding emotions. In starting the book halfway down the spiral and so much closer to somewhere really else, we can't see who the story is about. And by the end, we struggle to see what the heck the story actually is about – that fifth issue is impenetrable.

I'm not sure I quite agree with this being Teen/YA, This definitely fits into the rarely used descriptor of New Adult.

It is also most definitely NSFW, nudity and sex are very prevalent along with depictions of violence and body horror.

This was a very interesting take on Mental Health and Toxic relationships, But also it was like a bad trip, a really bad trip.

You definitely need to be in the right headspace to consume this piece of media.

The protagonist in this book is THIRTY-EIGHT - this is NOT teen/ya and is definitely in the wrong category! It is also a very explicit graphic novel with a lot of nudity and full on sex, not something I have a problem with but further proof it isn't a teen book. The art was cool and I loved the colours but the story was so weird and made very little sense.

Wild story! Interesting, and the illustrations are killer. However the subject matter/illustrations would not be appropriate for my classroom. Great for my personal library though!

If Her was a sapphic kinky horror, and I love it! The concept of this comic is wonderful, confusing, provoking and dark.

And the artwork, oh my god the artwork! It perfectly mirrors the strange, scary story. It pulls you into the world that’s been created and I never wanted to leave.

Thanks to NetGalley & Aftershock Comics for the early copy in exchange for an honest review. 3.5 stars.

This story follows a lonely woman, Catrin, who tries to solve her loneliness with an AI girlfriend. It doesn't end up working out and Catrin falls deeper into a rabbit hole of technology and self-reflection....

It honestly was really good until the last 2 issues or so when it got really confusing and...surrealist, I guess? It's probably just me who didn't like that angle, I thought the story was really good up to that point.

It was still really cool to see a sci-fi story mixed up with a bad breakup plotline, that was fascinating to see.

The artwork is STUNNING and I absolutely adore it, I'll definitely be following the artist from now on.

Recommend for anyone who is a fan of horror mixed with science fiction.

Lonely Receiver is intense, gruesome, brutal and at times confusing. It is definitely not for the faint of heart so be prepared.

The storyline is filled with pain, anguish and obsession, it is a truly horrifying read.
For those of us who have experienced the above emotions will be able to relate to the main character's story and her decline into darkness. Catrin is a truly haunted and tormented character.

The visuals in this piece are truly something I have never seen before. At times they are hard to stomach but of course, that is by design. Whilst the story itself alone would still be horrific in nature the artwork elevate the piece to a new level of horror.

First of all, I really loved the art style and the colors. It was very fun and futuristic and it's definitely the aspect I enjoyed most from this graphic novel. The story itself was also very intriguing and also quite sad. I think I can see what the author was trying to get across but it kind of got a little confusing near the middle. There was a very long monologue-y type that confused me about who was speaking and I didn't really get the whole orgy thing going on. I did like the message and the ending, but it felt sudden. This was a very strange but nevertheless enjoyable read.

A horror breakup story about a lonely video producer who starts a relationship with an AI partner. Catrin is lonely and thinks the best way to get in a relationship is buying an AI parter that is meant to bond for life. After 10 years, things start to go wrong and then Catrin’s wife disconnects and breaks up. Catrin starts to sink into insanity trying to deal with the loneliness and finding her wife again. It was such an interesting read, especially the whole AI wife bit, and the futuristic setting. The artwork is really pretty and the overall story was a great read!

*Thanks Netgalley and Diamond Book Distributors for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*