I wanted to like this book. The concept was cool, and the art style was adorable. The story itself lost me quickly though.
I'm not sure what the intended audience was. The characters seemed too immature, with the story written too straight-forward, to match some of the other content present. Those contrasting moods led to the tale having an odd energy, especially since the story only skimmed the surface of many of the more serious topics
The book also gave off a very negative view of romantic relationships.

*Minor spoilers*:

There's no healthy romantic relationship shown in the whole story. There's no good man or boy shown. The male characters shown are neglectful, cruel, selfish, etc. Even the parents of the three girls who we see most fall into these categories of unideal men/bad relationships. As for the girls... We have a side character who has decided that she needs to avoid guys in order to focus on her interest in science, and another character who says that her way of doing things is to just date multiple guys at once (to the amusement of her friends). A variety of the other girls shown are depicted as being obsessed with guys or the idea of love, regardless of how little they know their supposed object of affection. "Love" is a word that is treated rather flippantly throughout this book. The ending tried to tie things together and give a "love is painful but we should love anyways" without showing any positives to romantic love throughout the book. It was an odd choice.
The good thing I can say is that the art style was beautiful. Overall though... I didn't enjoy this one.

An excellent addition to the gallery of tween/teen domestic titles like Raina Telgemeier's Drama, Svetlana Chmakova's Berrybrook Middle School series (Awkward, Brave, Crush, Enemies), and the romance oriented Baby Sitter's Club graphic novel adaptations (Logan Likes Mary Anne!, Boy-Crazy Stacy, et al).

Lola and Grace are curious about love, so they decide to investigate the student romances at their school and write their findings down in their 'Love Report'. Along the way, Lola goes through the experiences of a romantic relationship with classmate Noah, from crush to boyfriend to breakup. This is a sweet, low stakes read that nevertheless deals with issues of tween/teen romance, heartbreak, slut-shaming, objectification, in-group exclusions and bullying. The age of the characters/grade level does not appear to be explicitly stated, but it has a Middle School-ish feel, or early High School.

This is a title by French writing duo BeKa and Italian artist Maya, so there may be a few places where there are minor cultural differences from the American/Canadian books listed above. The first half was published in 2021 by Belgian publisher Dupris.

Maya, a former student of the European Manga Academy, illustrates in a clean manga-style that cleanly merges European comics emotional modeling and facial expression with Japanese manga style linework, lay-out, and color. The use of close-ups mid sequence for emotional impact, particularly for showing subtle emotional shifts is especially strong.

This is definitely going on my list for tween graphic novel readers' advisory for tweens looking for read-a-likes for the titles above.

This book was absolutely precious. I can't get over the stunning artwork. It truly felt like these pages and characters were coming to life. The story itself was really adorable and I absolutely loved all of the characters. I am older than who this book is intended for, so perhaps that's where I felt a little disconnect with the plot but it was overall very cute and definitely something that I would recommend to my friends for a cute graphic novel read. I want to give a huge thank you to NetGalley, Astra Publishing House, and Hippo Park for providing me with a copy for an honest review.

ARC provided by NetGalley. This is a very sweet graphic novel exploring the many ways love can hurt and be the most wonderful thing. We follow two best friends who want to see what love is like in their middle school around them. The most important thing about this story is that the girls realize that the people around them are not always what they seem and just because someone is “pretty” or is labeled “easy” doesn’t mean there isn’t another side to that story. The girls also have their own personal happenings with love and their opinions and feelings about it based on what is going on in their lives. It’s a cute story, perfect for middle school although I definitely thought the two best friends were in love with each other so I am sad that that wasn’t the trajectory this story was going on. Also the book needs some editing as some of the words were missing and it looks like the author changed some of the names for the characters because you can see remnants of the old names. Overall it’s a sweet story which reminds me a lot of Svetlana’s Awkward series. It might be too young for my HS library but should go into middle schools and public for sure!

NetGalley ARC Educator 550974

A wonderful story about the nuances of love, friendship, support and relationships. Though told from a middle schooler's point of view, the stories resonate for all ages. A must read for schools and families.

Best friends Lola and Grace study the relationships all around them at school as they try to understand love. Many of those relationships end quickly and often messily, which presents a rather skewed view of love. We meet all sorts of interesting characters as they investigate and interview their classmates. Along the way, the two friends face family strain and a first-time boyfriend, which test their relationship and teach them about being there for one another.

The vibrant, colorful art of this book deserves all the praise! The characters and their surroundings are just so PRETTY and their attitudes and expressions so clearly depicted. Don't let the art style fool you - while this story is cute and lovely, it does mirror a lot of not-light-hearted real life. But the girls' friendship is a sweet, hopeful light in the midst of difficult situations they can't solve.

Reviewed for NetGalley:

Honest review from my 9 year old daughter.

The Love Report was great. I really enjoyed seeing these characters together again. The illustrations were wonderful also.

I started this with HIGH hopes, the graphics and description had me so excited to dive in. I do think the entire aesthetic that was used is absolutely spot-on and magnificent to look at. I loved the way every page looked. My problems with this come when you start to really read the story and realize... this is for a younger audience. It focused very heavily on love - hence the name - but there was something that felt disconnected throughout it for me. It took a while for me to realize that the language and plotline were starting to give me ehhh vibes. Especially by the end, I enjoyed the general story but I don't think I would feel comfortable saying I loved it. Now that's not saying I think younger readers couldn't read and grasp this and be able to understand these topics but it's a little on the nose considering I don't think it was done in a great way for them to read. Now if it had been directed more toward my age it would have been quite different because there wouldn't need to be that worry of someone reading this and thinking about the way they treat other girls and if the language is acceptable. But it could just be me being picky.

The main characters in this book are lovely and adorable and deserve to be protected and loved. My goodness, what a good book!

Thank you NetGalley and Astra Publishing House for a copy of The Love Report!

Grace and Lola are best friends in middle school that are looking to understand love. They create a notebook where they write down what they learn along the way.

This has two volumes of a graphic novel. I thought the art style was beautiful, especially the coloring of the illustrations. I thought the story was cute and I liked seeing Grace and Lola learn about themselves and others. I think there were some good lessons about how we perceive and treat others.

This is a really cute graphic novel that looks at middle graders trying to figure out relationships and young "love". I liked the colors throughout too.
This is a lovely graphic novel that I think many middle grade & even high school teens will like and relate to.

Thanks NetGalley for this ARC!

Grace and Lola are best friends just trying to figure out what's so great about love. It seems like everyone in their middle school has a crush or a partner, but when the two girls set out to figure out why everyone loves love so much, they make a few realizations about themselves and each other.

I adored the art style chosen for The Love Report! Maya did a fantastic job with the anime-esque illustrations that really brought all the characters to life. Not to mention the color palettes and tones really made this inviting.

There was a bizarre amount of slut-shaming and name-calling in this middle grade/YA graphic novel. The main girls call their peer a "bimbo" for simply being a girl that some of the boys are attracted to, and slut-shame another for wearing skirts and fishnets. Though both instances are eventually resolved and show the characters having rounded personalities, the name-calling is never addressed or explained that it's wrong. The Love Report also deals with some heavy topics like rumors, sexual assault / unwanted touching, and child abuse (emotional). I feel like, though middle grade/young YA books can handle heavy topics such as these, the ages of the characters might have needed to be pushed forward because this book focuses so much on love and the things that come with it.

I wish that the serious topics had been handled with a little more fine-tuning. At some points the dialogue felt like it was translated / missing a little context from situations and I found myself wondering if this was previously published before being reworked. Overall, I feel like this graphic novel had its heart in the right place, but the execution could have been better.

Thank you to NetGalley, Astra Publishing House, and Hippo Park for providing me with a copy for an honest review.

Thanks to Netgalley and Astra Publishing House for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was? A fine children's graphic novel. It was cute! Very sweet! But it didn't have anything that ultimately made it feel special to me, and while that might be a disconnect between intended audience and me as a reader, I /have/ read so many children's graphic novels that do leave me vibrating days later. Anyway, if there is something to write home about, it's the art for this, which is sweet and stunning and works well with the writing style!

Thank you to Astra Publishing for letting me read this early.

This story was like a warm hug that I really needed. I wish this was published when I was a kid because alot of the themes that are discussed in the book. I related too. Definitely a must read if you need comfort,

4/5 Stars - I received a copy for review through Netgalley! The story follows two best friends trying to navigate “love” and what it means to be in love or love someone. The graphic novel is catered to a younger audience.

I think it does a good job talking about some tough subjects like divorce, sexual assault, bullying, and being misunderstood. I am curious to see if the story will continue because while the ending was really heartfelt I believe it was missing something.

I would recommend this to young readers around 13+ because some of the topics can be a bit triggering. The story is really cute and I think it really shows the power of love through friendship and familial bonds.

A sweet middle grade book about two friends figuring out what love means to them. I loved the art style a lot. And I appreciated the individuality of all the girls. It was nice to see a story where in the end, the love is the people who choose you and you choose in turn. Boys don't matter.