Absolutely adorable graphic novel! The art style is so pleasing and I absolutely love the way the characters are drawn and the overall coloring. I think the facial expressions and emotions are so cute. Murray and Jacob are both such wonderful characters and have my favorite Golden Retriever x Black Cat dynamic. I think the representation is so well done in this book as it is not ALL of the character's personality but just a part of their life and who they are that their relationship builds alongside of. I would honestly love to see more of them in another installment to see how college and their futures are going outside of the small bonuses in this book!

I really enjoyed this story of young love and coming of age. Murry Summerfield is an outgoing, football playing young man who has a secret desire to be a vet. He meets Jacob Durris, who is his new neighbour. Adopted by his parents, home schooling and living with a mental health condition, Jacob intrigues Murray and the two become good friends. As time passes the two young men provide support to one another and their friendship blossoms into love.

This is a graphic novel and the artwork which is beautiful, powerfully conveys the story and the struggles Jacob has with his mental health. I loved the way the story takes us into the future and ends with hope. This is definitely going on my list of exquisite reads for 2023.

A brilliant story and beautiful to read.

Copy provided by publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

Beyond adorable. I was smiling and swooning the entire time. The relationship between the two main characters develops so naturally it was adorable to witness their love story. The art style is so well done, and fits the story perfectly. A must read for everyone.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

I really enjoyed this book. The characters were sickeningly sweet and had interesting stories/diverse backgrounds. I just feel like things in the comic were rushed, storylines were introduced and kind of brushed over. I wish there had been a bit more focus on the relationship between the characters and that they had more of a relationship with people outside of each other.

Cuckoos Three is a charming LGBTQIA graphic novel. Jacob and his family move to a small town. Jacob meets Murray. Friendship, romance, and low-key drama ensue.

Loved reading this book. The art is great, the story is sweet, and Jacob's secret is a unique twist for books like this.

If you like Heartstopper, Taproot, or Bloom you will love this book!

Thank you for the arc!!

I really enjoyed this graphic novel. The art was beautiful and I loved the character designs, the scenery, and especially how well they translated emotion in the art. It was very easy to figure out exactly what the characters were feeling from the art alone.

It was easy to read and I was able to finish it very quickly without ever feeling like I was missing information. It was very easy to understand and to digest, and I never had a moment where I felt that I was missing something, like I sometimes do in graphic novels.

I enjoyed the look into DID in this book and it made me look into it more and get a greater understanding of it, so I am grateful that it educated me on something I didn't really understand before as well.

All around, a good, quick love story you may learn something from. I'd absolutely recommend giving it a shot.

This graphic novel was absolutely beautiful!! I loved the main characters, they were super sweet and I felt connected to them right away. I loved seeing the romance bloom, and the mental health rep was well-done. I would have liked to see a bit more from the supporting characters, but other than that this book really took me by surprise! Loved it!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

3.5 Stars!
This was a short but sweet romance between two boys, Murray and Jacob. Murray, the small-town country boy meets the new boy who just moved to town from the big city, Jacob. Murray is a standard golden retriever, casually buff, jock with a heart of gold type of character. Jacob is a quiet, artistic type with a cool alternative fashion look and a face full of piercings kind of character. Their charisma with one another is very cute, and their romance is sweet. There is period-accurate homophobia, but it's a pretty stereotypical plot line within LGBT high school romances. There is also implied spice in one scene, but thankfully, it's just a fade-to-black type. (I've said it before, but as an adult, I don't want to see explicit scenes of teen spice, no matter what format of media the story was made with.) Overall, this didn't feel like it had an overarching plot line that was cohesive to tie the entire book together. It felt more like I was reading assorted vignettes about the main couple. Which is okay, but I expected a bit more to the plot than what there actually was. However, I will applaud the authors for doing such an excellent job with their portrayal of a character having DID. DID is a pretty hard mental illness to depict within a story, but these authors did an excellent job with it. I also very much appreciate that they didn't sensationalize it like so many other stories have done. It was a simple "This is what I have, this is how it works, and this is how I work with it". Just straight to the point! Also, I love the art style. At first, I was ambivalent about it, but slowly grew to like it more and more the longer I read.

Oh this was cute. I definitely see how fans of Heartstopper could like this, and people who were fine with that comic but wanted something more. I like the diversity between the pair, and all the physical affection even before they got together. The animals were cute, the golden retriever x boy with problems friends to boyfriends trope is good, and I feel like the writer was really careful and caring about DID in a way to not sensationalize or romanticize the disorder (including a short primer at the end plus the note that no two people experience it the same!) This was cute; I'd go buy a copy as soon as I saw it in the wild!

Thank you to NetGalley and YenPress for allowing me to read in exchange for my honest review.

Heat Factor: Maybe a little over the clothes action (depending on how you read one frame)
Character Chemistry: Murry goes full golden retriever when a new kid moves in next door, and the new kid comes to like that
Plot: Murry's extremely normal small town life is upended when a heavily pierced, artistic city boy who's a little odd moves in next door
Overall: I loved this book. I just wish graphics had more room to dig into all the threads.

I requested an ARC of this book because the cover and title grabbed my attention. I mean, this cover is very strange looking, so I thought I might be in for something kind of weird, and based on the description of the story the illustration could really have gone in any direction, but that was the appeal. In fact, the illustration of this story is very tidy, not abstract or relying on unusual visual styles to relay underlying feelings and ideas. Looking back, the cover art makes sense in context, but the way it’s drawn from a bird’s eye view feels a bit more like Klimt than a storybook illustration.

The story itself contains a number of intense topics, from small town high school social politics to parental abuse. Due to the limited space of a graphic novel, not all of these ideas were as fleshed out as I might have liked. Instead, the story was tightly focused on the growing friendship between Murry and Jacob, and their focus on each other’s happiness and well-being. For me, this meant that the budding romance between these two young men was sweet, heartwarming, and uplifting. I loved it.

That said, the tight focus on the protagonists meant that some threads weren’t really tied off. For example, when Murry is recovering from breaking his arm and discovers what his mom said to Jacob at the hospital, he’s furious, but we don’t ever really close the loop on just what damage she caused. The homophobia Murry experiences when his teammates find out he’s dating Jacob begins to be addressed later on, but it’s only a beginning, not a resolution. And, I mean, teenage bullies being homophobic in a small town is very believable...but then too, do we always have to have the MC who comes out experience this? (Perhaps it would be too optimistic to think that every coming out story be met with unequivocal support, but the constant presumption of outright cruelty is also hard to stomach.)

Murry is a good-hearted golden retriever, but Jacob is a more complicated character. As a city boy moving to the country, he has to figure out how he fits into this new space. He’s got loads of piercings. He wears black all the time. He just doesn’t look like a wholesome country boy, but he’s a sweetheart who needs love just like everybody else. Jacob also has to deal with some serious trauma from parental abuse he experienced as a very small child, and so in addition to everything else, he has Dissociative Identity Disorder to contend with as well. This makes stressful situations even more of a challenge for him to navigate, and while that makes the narrative interesting to read, it was also nice to see a character with such an unusual diagnosis represented. I like stories that create new avenues for empathy by making us challenge our perceptions.

Read if you like a well-illustrated and charming story with strong friendship and caregiver vibes. I had the biggest warm fuzzies reading this book, and I certainly wouldn’t mind reading it again.

I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. We disclose this in accordance with 16 CFR §255.

This review is also available at The Smut Report.

☽𝔹𝕆𝕆𝕂 ℝ𝔼𝕍𝕀𝔼𝕎☾

3.75/5 ⭐
1/5 🌶️

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this advanced reader copy in return for an honest review.

Let me begin by noting that I adored the art style. It is simply breathtaking.

The narrative was genuinely lovely, and the characters were excellently matched. I read this in such a short amount of time because I was so engrossed in the tale, the style, the characters, and so on. I certainly enjoyed it and would have liked it to be longer.

My sole complaint is that I would have liked to see more character development for the main characters. Aside from that, I thoroughly loved this graphic novel.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
I will update this review soon when the publishing date is closer and with the intention of adding a link to my Instagram account in which I will post this review.

I loved this! If you're like me and you've been reading the webcomic, the graphic novel delivers the same charming story but this time in color! It's absolutely gorgeous, with Cassandra Jean's signature, captivating art. I love Murry and Jacob. They have such a soft meet cute/boys next door story. They're total opposites and absolutely head over heels for each other from the start. I liked that Murry enjoys Jacob's company and unique outlook, and while not a sports fan, Jacob wholeheartedly roots for Murry at football games. There are cute goats, idyllic farm scenery, and small town vibes. The story also gets into some heavy topics like Jacob's mental health and homophobic bullies. Overall, this is a sweet love story filled with beautiful art.

As someone who has followed Cassandra Jean's career for a long time now, I was so excited to finally get to see the end product of this collaboration. Murry and Jacob's story grabbed me from the first page. I just want all of the good things for both of them. I loved watching them fall in love and watching Murry's refusal to hide that he loved Jacob. Jacob and Murry's respective animal companions while a small part of their story, fit both of them and their personalities perfectly. I also loved the extra little comic-style additions after the main novel ended that gave peeks into Jacob and Murry's future. This graphic novel is soft and sweet while tackling very real issues for teens. I can't wait to add a physical copy of it to my shelf!

This comic is SO gorgeous! The ARC was a little pixelated and had a giant watermark in the middle of each page, so I definitely want to get my hands on a physical copy once this comes out so I can see each page in all it's true glory. This comic has an art style I'm really drawn to and want to work in myself, with flat colour work. The character designs are really cute and I absolutely love the main couple's faces and expressions - they kind of remind me a little bit of some of the characters from Haikyuu.

Seriously, the characters' expressions are so lovely. Lots of cute smug :3 kind of faces that I really adored. And the size difference between the characters was really cute too. Also the artist is SO good at drawing animals! All the animals were so cute and had such lovely personalities.

In terms of the plot, the story is ALSO very cute, though it does also hit on some darker notes (including bullying, homophobia, injury, and past abuse). There were a lot of bits that made me laugh and smile, but the characters do go through some hardship too.

Sweet YA/NA romance with D.I.D. rep

This graphic novel deals with some hard themes but had quite a soft execution. Partly because of the gentle, pastel tones of the art, but mostly because the characters were just so lovely.

Murry is such a golden retriever sweetheart, and though Jacob looked like a feisty kitten, he was a real softie at heart too.

I loved all the animals, I have such a weak spot for them. It was so wonderful how Jacob encouraged Murry's love for animals and adopted the gorgeous old man dog when Murry couldn't.

While I don't have any personal experience with it, it seemed like a respectful portrayal of D.I.D. and I appreciated the author mentioning the research that they did and having a little informational section at the end of the novel.

I think for me the flaw of the graphic novel is that even though you do get facial expressions and physicality, you don’t get as much insight into the inner workings of the character so the emotional connection felt just out of my reach.

On balance, graphic novels and YA/NA stories aren't really my thing but I would recommend this for a younger audience, or for people who do really enjoy graphic novels. Either way, it was a lovely breath of fresh air.

Cuckoos Three tells the story of a sweet romance between country boy Murray and his new neighbor Jacob as well as Jacobs struggles as to why he moved out to the country in the first place. I admit, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from this book, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The romance between Murray and Jacob is incredibly sweet, and it's a joy to watch their romance bloom. Even more than that, I was impressed with how Jacob's DID was represented - in that this is possibly the only representation from media that I've ever come across that feels realistic and respectful of those who experience it. There's even a Q&A section at the back of the book that gives more information about DID which was incredibly informative. My only complaint is that the story felt like it ended a bit abruptly and as such wasn't quite as satisfying as I was hoping for. That being said, Cuckoos Three is definitely worth a read, both for the gentle romance and the excellent representation.

3.5 stars

There were a number of good things going for this book. I don't think I've read a book about Disassociative Identity Disorder (DID) that tried really intentionally to be accurate. I appreciate Murry being so comfortable with himself that he just takes his attraction to Jacob that it isn't a huge announcement, he's just being himself.

I think Murry and Jacob's relationship moved too fast for the scope of this book. I found myself confused about their relationship. I ended up just accepting it, not questioning things too much, and moving on. "Oh, I guess they're friends now? Alright..." I also hated how Jacob didn't have any other friends outside of Murry (I know he just moved there, but still...) and Murry stopped seeing anyone outside of Jacob. I just ended up feeling more concerned than anything. I wish there had been closure with Murry's mother.

I liked this book and if a sequel came out, I would probably read it. But there were too many loose-ends for me by the end of the story to be completely satisfied.

I have been reading this story online and it’s one of my favourite web comics so I was absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to read the whole thing as an ARC. The story is so unique, I really empathized with these characters and felt invested in their lives. The struggles they face and they way they act was beautiful to see. I loved this graphic novel and I will definitely be recommending this to anyone who will listen to me!

<i>I received this title as an ARC on Net-galley in exchange for a honest review. Thank you Yen Press for the copy!</i>

<b>Highlights:</b>
I immediately loved Jacob and Murry's black cat and golden retriever dynamic they had going on. They both really cared about and understood each other. This was such a cute story! I also loved the art style and color palette used.

<b>Format:</b>
Ebook — Netgalley

<b>The Rating</b>
I give this book a <b>4/5🌟 rating.</b> I really liked this sweet couple and the beautiful art.

Check out my socials <a href="https://beacons.ai/buffyreads"> here</a> for more reviews!

TW: self harm scars (shown), claustrophobia, depression (mentioned), homophobia

Cuckoos Three is a short but sweet story between Murry, a farmer boy, and Jacob, who just moved in from the city. Murry and Jacob instantly hit off and their bond grows stronger as days pass.

Jacob has DID, depression, and claustrophobia; which are handled delicately in this book without making it a big deal. There is a section at the end where Jacob explains what Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is, and how it feels to live with it. And there are also parts of the story that mentions Jacob's childhood trauma and his triggers.

I love the cute art style in this graohic novel! It's very soft and the colour palettes set the atmosphere really well. I love Murry and Jacob's dynamic (golden retriever x black cat) and their interactions are so wholesome! There's also animals, painting, stargazing and text messages which I enjoy reading about! I love how natural the dialogue is too, and there are four cute bonus stories at the end!!

This is a graphic novel that will surely stay in my mind. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC!