This was SO good! We've got an ace MC and a questioning enby MC.

This is a story of friendship and learning from your mistakes. I would've liked to see the same level of resolution the enby character got for the ace MC as well, but as a whole, I genuinely enjoyed this one. Also having explicitly labeled asexual rep is so important and I loved it.

Papers Planes is a graphic novel that focuses on two teenagers Leighton and Dylan who are dealing with an incident that caused them both to be sent to a camp for troubled teens. This graphic novel focuses on a coming of age story focusing on the tribulations teenagers can face when learning to better understand themselves and other in regards to; sexuality, bullying, peer pressure, money stressors (high and low income families), and how to cope with triggers they experience in every day life.
I loved the colours and artwork of this graphic novel, and being able to view the story from the points of view of both Dylan and Leighton. The papers planes that were focused on throughout the novel a fun addition. I did find the transition between past and present scenes to be a bit confusing, and wish we could have known from the beginning the main issue, instead of waiting for the end of the story to find out what had happened to cause the two teens to be sent to camp. I loved Cricket and how well her character was portrayed, she seemed to be one of the most self aware characters, and honestly wished the story focused on her backstory more.
I did find some aspects of this graphic novel to triggering, and would suggest trigger warnings for bullying. The one main issue I had with this graphic novel is the idea that money can solve almost all issues, and the idea of causing someone harm can be "fixed" by sending teenagers to a camp for the summer, with no charges pressed for an act that had the potential to be deadly.
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

thank you netgalley for the arc copy of paper planes :)
this story was so cute, i loved the art style and rep so much!!
*spoilers possibly:
as bittersweet as the ending was, it was a good way to show how friendships don’t always work out and you can still love each other while being apart. i appreciated that as it is so realistic and i usually never see this happen in media.

Though this was a great coming of age story. I love the representation in this book as well as the characters!

I really liked the art style and message of this graphic novel, but I can see some parents groups probably being up in arms due to the discussion of asexuality, nonbinary/gender non-conforming people and homosexuality. However, I think it's very important for young people to have access to materials where people look or feel like they do. Books like this are an asset to young people questioning themselves or asking themselves "am I normal?" and seeing these characters that are just like them is important to have around.

This book was cute and sweet! I didn’t find it drew me in as much as I’d like in a book, but I acknowledge that I’m older than the target audience. I think it does a great job of circling themes of friendship, conflict, change, queerness and asexuality. It’s nice to see asexual and non binary representation in children/YA’s fiction. However, I would’ve loved for it to dive into the characters and themes even more to round out the story.

Overall, a pleasant read! Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I haven't read many graphic novels and I'm happy to say this was a good surprise! I liked it a lot, the story, the art style, the complicated friendship between the two main characters, the hard truths and topics it touched as the story progressed.

It was unexpectedly bittersweet, but oddly satisfying and beautifully executed!

this graphic novel was insanely cute but also so painful. the art is incredible, it got me hooked from the very first page until the last one. i love how the author managed to touch sensitive while still making it feel light and lovely to read. i loved how it showed how you can grow apart from someone you used to be best friends with and that it’s okay.

the book also touches on ethics, which was a really good surprise to me.

i absolutely LOVED the representation and the storytelling. overall, a really good one!

I loved this so much. a coming of age story about two best friends at summer camp.. the art style is beautiful. i couldn't put this down!

I loved this! The art style was really lovely. This was a story about struggling with who you want to be and also accepting others for who they are. The non-binary rep in this was great and really important to readers in a similar age range to be able to relate to!

I definitely recommend checking this out!

First of all: The art style!!!!! ough I love the art so much, it's such a pleasure to read it! I also love how time jumps are shown in softer, lighter colour palette (i got confused at first but i quickly got used to it)

This is such a bittersweet book, but I'm so happy things worked out in the end. The story follows Dylan, a nonbinary teen, and Leighton, an asexual teen, who have been sent to a camp after a traumatic incident that landed both of them in trouble. I felt Dylan's hurt and their longing for Leighton, their former friend, and OUGH it hurts,, I feel really bad for Leighton too because of the expectations put upon her. The plot touches on delicate topics, but I think it's done quite well here.

I also love the diversity in this book! oughhh I wanna be friends with Cricket so bad :")

Big thanks NetGalley, Mad Cave Studios, and Maverick for the ARC!

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC
I read this book in about two hours. It was an easy, soft read, nothing too dark and nothing too difficult. The LGBTQ+ representation was great, and I enjoyed the art style.

The Plot:
This is a story of change and inner strength. Two people are sent to a camp for troubled youth, and discover a world of artists and other adolescants with stories to tell. A simple, straight-forward story dancing from present to past tense, with flashbacks to explain how they got there. It's very engaging and easy to read.

The Characters:
As a nonbinary trans-masc, I personally related to one of the main characters. They were well fleshed out and I could feel some of their isolation through the story. However, the other characters felt slightly flat, and a little bit forced. I enjoyed the depth to the relationships, however, and appreciated the aro-ace rep.

The Prose/Pacing:
This is a fast-paced book with minimal exposition, but what *is* written (I don't know the term for it, but it's not dialogue and it's in boxes in the comic) is very contrived and info-dumpy. My least favorite part of the book was definitely reading the character's inner thoughts, although occaisonally they made an interesting observation.

Final Thoughts/Ratings:
4/5 stars
3/5 recommendability (I would recommend to those who liked simple graphic novels, not someone who enjoys detailed, poetic, or especially thought-provoking literature)

4.5 stars

Paper Planes is a story about understanding others, but more importantly, about understanding yourself. Through a series of personal growth exercises and flashbacks, the characters' motivations are revealed, to the reader and to themselves, painting a realistic scene of difficult but important relationships in the teenagers' lives. It is a brilliant reminder that in all situations, everyone is doing their best, even if others don't see it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Mad Cave Studios for the ARC.

ARC review for Paper Planes by Jennie Woods
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
LGBTQ+ rep!
This was such a cute read! I love graphic novels and this one is close to the top! It is beautifully illustrated and written! This story is about 2 friends Leighton & Dylan who get shipped off too a troubled youth summer camp and need a good report back.
The camp forces them to look inward and find themselves. They have to look at their lifelong friendship. This is an amazing coming of age story and an great book about finding your identity and who you want to be! I’m definitely going to be looking into more things from this author!

✈️🚀 ✈️🚀

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This is a story about Dylan and Leighton, who have a long friendship. They get into some trouble that puts them in a summer camp where they have to work through their shared and personal issues to make sure they don't end up in an alternate high school, or in bigger trouble.

The characters were really likeable and the plot moved quickly. There was a lot of jumping back and forth between time periods as a way to progress the story. I did like that because it allowed the friendship between Dylan and Leighton to be revealed slowly and with purpose.

In the end, both characters learn more about themselves, but I do wish that their friendship ended up in a different place. However, it left the door open for each of them to explore new aspects of their own lives.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This is a hard and complex subject matter, and I wish it was done more in depth because the story fell a bit flat. Nothing really got resolved and I didn’t even feel like the characters really grew during the book, nor was there even a real attempt to? It felt like a slice of life but if that slice of life was wildly depressing. I don’t need a happy ending, this is a real ending and that’s perfectly fine, but I wish it just had more depth and emotion to it to get me invested.

I also would have loved to read more about Leighton’s asexuality, because I feel like the extent of her attraction and how she feels wasn’t given the time and attention it deserved. It was also a bit confusing sometimes to figure out if she or Dylan were talking - the colors were so similar and it wasn’t easily distinguishable. The art was wonderful though, it was beautiful on every page.

This graphic novel was absolutely lovely. It had a beautifully bittersweet ending, which I love because sometimes people do grow apart and decide that society/familial expectations and obligations are too big and crushing to break out from under and its sad, but its real. The characters were great, even when you didn't like the choices they made, the family dynamics, the representation of queer identities and the complicated relationship with race we briefly get to see are portrayed so well. And the art style was just so so beautiful.

I do love a bittersweet friendship story - I think this will be great for my middle school patrons on the cusp of high school. I think it's important to stress that relationships (of whatever kind) don't have to be forever, and there's often no such thing as a demarcation between good person and villain when a relationship ends. The art was cute & the tones/color palette was a little more "grown up" than a lot of the middle grade graphic novels that readers might be graduating from.

This graphic novel has a lot going on! There are issues of class/ family income-disparity between two friends (the protagonists) who are at a camp for troubled teens and must perform well to keep further bad things from happening to them. Like going to alternative high school (which in real life can be a great things for young people who are not fitting in.) There's tones of diversity of many kinds in this story, and a somewhat surprising ending. A good/inventive effort by the author and illustrator.

4/5 Stars

Thank you to Mad Cave Studio for providing me with an ARC in exchange for a review.

I saw this cute graphic novel under the LGBTQIAP+ Reads section on Netgalley and I always want to read whatever cute queer graphic novels I can find so I requested it. This story follows two teens at a troubled teen camp for the summer after they did something but that isn’t revealed until later in the book. It flashes back throughout their friendship to earlier scenes between them to show how their friendship progressed to the point of the troubled teen camp. I loved all of the representation in the book, there was asexual and nonbinary rep. I would have liked a little more exploration into the asexual rep as I couldn’t tell if it was that she was more demisexual or aromantic going off of what was shown. I did feel that the ending left a little to be desired but overall it was very good. The art style was amazing and I can’t wait to see what else the illustrator has done or will do.

I highly recommend this for people looking for a coming of age story with LGBTQ+ rep.