I have been a fan of Ngozi Ukazu since she started publishing her hockey comics online, and I am once again more than satisfied with her humor, her heart, and the cartoony-yet-realistic art.

Molly's full ride art school scholarship gets denied on her first day of orientation. Now she has no way to pay for school. Through searching the PICA financial aid and scholarship book, she finds that every athlete on a team that wins one game gets a scholarship. She just has to put together a softball team at art school.

I loved the art of the graphic novel. The story was good and I liked how it balanced the silliness with more serious topics. Perfect for upper high school and new adults.

Thank you First Second Books and NetGalley for the advanced electronic review copy of this great book! It’s such a good story about teamwork, perseverance, friendship, and fighting for one’s beliefs. Loved the graphics; lots of detail and color. Such a fun, quick read!

I'm always looking for YA books with older characters because so many kids want to read about older characters, not just other high schoolers. This helps fill that gap, and while the premise and plot are definitely a bit over the top, it's a quick, funny read with an entertaining cast of characters.

I never thought I would see an art school become parasitic. And yes, that is a very hard sentence for me to say because most art schools with clout can build careers. In this case though? Pica is not worth it. Very not worth it.

Molly doesn't believe that her dream school would fail her, with its seeming dedication to historic preservation. She fought to go to college locally after getting a full-ride, and turned down a full-ride at Duke. But Pica has misplaced her scholarship, saying that they can't accept it and the people that dispensed it are not reachable by phone. Dropping out is not an option at this juncture, especially since Molly's face is on the cover of her welcome package, as a model scholarship student. So she tries another option: softball. She's played since high school, and her best friend knows the game. He can be a coach. Due to a loophole in academic scholarships, if their team wins one game, they get a full ride. The "if" is the big part.

It's a desperate plan, but the other option is Molly confesses to her parents who will give her the I-told-you-so. They may also make her transfer to a more affordable place. So she'd rather fix this mess rather than ask the president for help when the latter starts attending games. It's not a good look, and she knows it.

Ngozi didn't have to dive back into the fuzzy world of Check, Please! to give us a good story; she shows us how brutal college life can be, with plenty of humor about having to run for the bases rather than walk. And as Molly finds out, dreams don't have to die if you need to make a change.

4.5/5 ⭐️

Okay this graphic novel was freaking hilarious. It follows a young woman who's starting college and finds out last minute that her financial aid isn't valid. She comprises a plan and pulls together a rag-tag team of different students from her art school to form a softball team so they can all get scholarships. All of the characters in this story are so f***ing funny. So many eclectic and just perfectly weird characters from furries (not kidding) to boisterous painting prodigies. I love how unrestrained and chaotic the character interactions are. The story also features a racially diverse set of characters and includes great queer representation. For anyone who has experienced the hellscape of paying for higher education in the US this graphic novel is relatable as hell and a must read! My only critique is around two inconsistencies within the storyline that didn't seem to align quite right and led to a little confusion but overall those instances were not common and everything else the story gives you makes the story still highly entertaining and a must read.

This was such a super fun and delightful story! I really loved the art, the characters were delightful, and I always love a good ending. I've been following Ngozi's work from the beginning so it was such a delight to get a chance to review this book.

Side note on the technical stuff for accessing this book - that was a nightmare!! The file struggled on my tablet, and took a solid ten minutes per page to load on my computer. I was luckily able to use another tablet and that loaded normally, but I'm not quite sure why I struggled so much. So glad it was able to work out so I could finish this book in a normal fashion!

Reading other reviews, I seem to be in the minority and couldn't really get into this graphic novel. The artwork was nice. The story was okay. The characters just felt really immature for their age. They acted more high-school than college aged. I am still going to recommend Bunt! to teenagers at our library. I know many of them will love it.

Thank you to Netgalley and First Second for providing me with a review copy.

Thank you for an advanced digital copy of this graphic novel. I absolutely adored everything about this graphic novel! I loved the art style throughout the book. The full, diverse cast of characters were wonderful, and I really enjoyed how they all interacted together throughout the book. I loved Molly's journey throughout the book and her love for her hometown. This book was a fun read, and I can't wait to recommend it to our patrons!

I wasn't sure if I was going to enjoy this graphic novel initially, but it was such a fun read. The main character is promised a full ride at her town's arts college -- and her picture is even plastered on the front page of the semester's first edition of the college brochure. But when she shows up on move in day, she's denied entrance because her scholarship's donor reneged on the funding. Now, she convenes a team of artist to form a softball team, which could qualify them for a loop hole that would get them all full rides. The issue is art students aren't athletes.

The illustrations were great. There was a lot of really well built out characters. The other Black character constantly cursing and being sassy was a bit annoying though,

I liked this one so much! I didn't really know what I was getting myself into, but a heartwarming story about a ragtag group of athletes and also...gentrification?? LOVED THIS and can't wait to recommend it.

what a fun romp this was! this cast of characters was so great and molly was a really wonderful protagonist. i enjoyed the format and felt that the story was pretty straightforward. i predicted a few of the plot points right out of the gate, but it was otherwise a really solid narrative. i also really wanted some more of the secondary characters on the team fleshed out, i loved how there was such a sprawling and diverse cast but i felt that some were just given a bit more attention than others. i really enjoyed this one, though, and look forward to more from the author and illustrator!

This was SO much fun! I have had my eye out for Ukazu to put something new out since absolutely LOVING her earlier queer hockey romance series, Check, Please! This did not disappoint! Although less focused on the squishy delectable romance, this is another sports-centric college graphic novel, this time set at an expensive private art school. This was a super satisfying story of decidedly (mostly) un-sporty art kids banding together on the field. If you love fish out of water, found family, sticking it to the man, and a tiny bit of queer romance (and some *hilarious* misquoted titles and sayings, seriously, guffawed so loudly) - this is a grand slam. (Did I do that sports right?)

When thinking about Bunt! the first word which comes to mind is charming, in that all of the characters, plot and artwork charm the reader into following along with the wild plan to gain financial aid through winning a single softball game. If you have previously read the work of Ngozi Ukazu, specifically "Check Please!", "Bunt!" has a similar vibe of multiple characters coming together as a team and friends and learning and growing through college sports. While I have not read Mad Rupert before,this work made me interested in exploring her work as well. "Bunt!" explores the developments people go through in college as well as the difficulties of college financial aid. Within this story, the authors do well at creating characters who you want to root for and become frustrated when the characters face disappointments. IN addition to tackling college financial aid, This graphic novel also involves a subplot involving the destruction of historical buildings by a college gentrifying a neighborhood. All in all I would certainly recommend this book, particularly to fans of Ngozi Ukazu's previous work.

This is a fabulous graphic novel! Molly enrolls in PICA, the art school of her dreams, conveniently located right in her home town. She gets a scholarship to the school, which is the only way she can afford to go. Unfortunately, on the first day of school she learns that her scholarship folded and didn't pay out, so she has no way to pay for college. This sets the scene for an ambitious effort to form a softball team, win at least one game, and qualify for an athletic scholarship. Molly and her friend Ryan recruit a diverse group of students to the team, all of whom join for different reasons. As you might expect in a story like this, there is bonding and friendships, drama and fights, and nail-biting moments of competition.

Ukazu tells a compelling story with fully formed characters that keeps the reader engaged. Rupert brings colorful, vivid artwork to the story, creating movement, emotion, and interest. Together they have created a fantastic graphic novel that should be on the shelves of all libraries.

Thank you to First Second and NetGalley for the advanced readers copy. All opinions are my own.

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Tl;DR: I had fun with this. The art style was fun and the banter was hilarious. The beginning was a bit slow but after that it was a blast.

Does anyone else have those college dreams? You either forgot you are enrolled in a class and half way through the semester you remember? Or you go to school only to find out you don’t have any of the supplies? Or you enroll and your financial aid falls through? So this is the last one, but make how do you fix it. This really tickled me because of how relatable it was (I have one of those dreams at least once a month, college is still stressing me out over ten years later).

Molly won a full ride to the art college of her dreams but because the system is very faulty, her money falls through and she needs to find a way to pay for her education. She finds a loophole, and the best way to get that loophole? Softball. This graphic novel follows her as she builds a ragtag softball team and finds a way to get her scholarship.

I really enjoyed this. I’ll say the first little bit was a bit hard to get through, but after that it truly picked up. Meeting the team, the dynamics and personalities, they were all so fun. If you know any art kids - these are those kids (from someone who majored in Art). The banter is great, the characters cracked me up, and the art style was so expressive and really enhanced the story being told.

This was so fun, and if you enjoy graphic novels I highly recommend this one.

4 out of 5 exquisitely created chairs

This was a really cute and fun story by the author of Check Please. The characters felt original and I loved the art!

A typical graphic novel where the main characters trying to go to art school, but her scholarship is revoked. She goes for a new scholarship where she has to put a team together to play softball. The characters are very immature especially for being college students. The characters in the pictures were tails and cat ears and wings. I guess that’s because they are students and art students are quirky? The plot is very basic, the characters feel very immature and are struggling with problems that seem more like a high school or young adult dilemma. The art was fun to watch the characters expressions but overall this was a very average graphic novel.

A thoroughly enjoyable read, I (metaphorically) picked up this (digital) book (arc) and could not put it down until I’d finished it.

Molly is such a wonderful and relatable character—the perfect character to get lost in. She won my heart at the beginning of the book, letting herself get emotional in the face of a horribly unfair financial aid crisis (which I can also relate to, as probably most of us can), and not being afraid to stand up for herself and fight for what she knew she deserved. And she kept my heart through the highs and lows of art college softball, while she learned more about what she wanted in her life, and how to work a system that had no one’s best interest at heart (God Bless Molly Bauer).

The full cast of characters were delightful to get to know. Every one of them was unique and fun, but also definitely people I know, people I’ve gone to school with, people who don’t usually get made into characters in media. Between Kavi and Ally I knew that Ngozi Ukazu was not afraid to depict the reality of university students, specifically art college students. It was the Yaoi shirt that really sold it to me, actually.

The characters were relatable and lovable, the plot hit me right in my student-loan-having soft spot, and the tension left me flipping through the book’s (digital) pages furiously, needing to know what happened next, next, next!

Wow was that last game tense! I had to get up and walk around my room burn off some restless energy.

It was so exciting to read Ngozi Ukazu’s latest published work, and it absolutely did not disappoint.

I loved Ngozi Ukazu’s Check Please series and I really had high expectations going into reading this which were not disappointed. I loved her storytelling and while this didn’t feature her illustrations Madeline Rupert’s art was super cute and really fun. All the characters were amazing, I really loved all the side characters and I loved that it tackled the difficult issues with obtaining financial aid, struggling to pay for college and how you can get overwhelmed with predatory loans while you are just trying to get an education. I loved that Molly has to turn a bunch of art/math majors into being mildly proficient in softball since they just have to win one came to qualify for a team scholarship and that she coerces her best friend to coach them. Just a really fun read and I can’t wait to read what she has coming up.

Thanks to First Second and Netgalley for the complimentary copy of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.