I really enjoyed Navigating With You by Jeremy Whitley, a graphic novel with two LGBTQ+ main characters, Neesha who is living in Cerebral Palsy and Gabby, a surfer dealing with the loss of her mom. They are both the new kids in town and at a school in North Carolina, and they go on a quest across the state to find missing volumes of a manga series. I loved their budding friendship (and potential romance) as well as the portrayal of Neesha living with CP, showing her struggles and how she advocated for herself. I appreciated Neesha and Gabby’s open family relationships. Strong character development and beautiful illustrations by Cassio Ribiero make this a compelling graphic novel. Thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the eARC.

Such an adorable and wholesome read! I loved having such poignant (an necessary) conversations about disability and how that interacts with dating and your day to day experiences. I am truly honored to have been given the chance for this ARC and I recommend this to all who want a cute sapphic love story. I know that I would have loved to have a story like this to read when I was in middle school or high school, but even though I am not in the age range of the characters, it still resonated deeply with me. This truly has everything you could ever need in a story and the illustrations were incredible, I am absolutely in love with the art style and character designs.

i loved this book SO MUCH!! usually, graphic novels tend to be so short and quick the stories don’t feel very well-rounded, but this one was and had many layers to it. i thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Neesha and Gabby and watching them fall in love! i enjoyed the sub-story with the manga excerpts from what the characters were reading. i’ve read another graphic novel that did this but i didn’t enjoy it because the excerpts felt out of place and confusing, however, Whitley did an amazing job of creating parallels between the main story and the manga story. lastly, the art was gorgeous!!!!

Thank you to the publishers and to netgalley for sending me an Arc of Navigating With You!!

I loved this. Navigating With You is a heartwarming story about two girls who find each other and help each other find themselves. Gabby and Neesha’s were great protagonists, and I loved loved loved how the artist showed us both of their thoughts throughout the graphic novel.

The art was adorable, the representation was wonderful and I would definitely read another graphic novel about these two.

I will be honest—I did not expect to enjoy this as much as I did when I first began reading it. Neesha has her walls up and comes across very defensive. Gabby puts on a happy face and seems to lack emotional depth. PLEASE believe me when I tell you that the character development in this story dissolved my initial hesitation and doubt!

By the end, I had laughed; I had cried (a few times); I had FELT, which is ultimately what any good read should do—make the reader experience an emotional journey with their characters. Navigating With You touches on many important social concepts and offers a glimpse into realities of what people with disabilities and trauma survivors go through in their day-to-day lives.

Although not skimping on emotional and evocative scenes and dialogue, this story also highlights just plain teenage fun in a slice of life style. You like road trips? You got it. Yard sales, thrift shops, and flea markets—and a weird magical traveling thrift store van?! Look no further. Oh, you also love Yuri Manga? BET! This book is for you!

I could write more, but it’s best to just say: READ IT!

It was an immense honor and genuine pleasure to read this ARC, and it in no way influenced my review or rating of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Maverick for providing an arc to reviewers.

This was the absolute CUTEST. I am so impressed by how much story and character development was fit into this short little book. One of the sweetest little lesbian love stories I have ever read. Navigating With You follows two girls who bond over a manga series that is out of print and decide to hunt down all of the volumes together. They form a beautiful friendship and then romantic love along the way and I am not ashamed to say I teared up. This was so lovely!!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an eARC for me to review! What a cute cover and premise, and oh boy did it deliver!!

While there are some moments that felt a little unrealistic (like shouting at a principal on the first day and not getting suspended?? incredible) and the narrative skipping chunks at times that made me check if I accidentally flipped a page ahead, overall it's a very solid, cute book with plenty of fandom, sapphic love, mixed with some heavier themes as well.

The art is so cute!!! Everyone smiles genuinely wide like Eiichiro Oda's work. The soft colour palettes really work, and having the girl's inner thoughts be different coloured blocks was a great way to visually separate them!

Definitely will be recommending this book to anyone who likes a cute graphic novel read.

Neesha and Gabby are two queer nerds who run into each other on the first day at their new school, with Neesha taking on the sexist, homophobic, and ableist principal. Great start to the book.

Gabby finds her way into being friends with Neesha, both girls eventually bonding over a manga, Navigator Nozomi. But, like many great older manga, the easiest way to find it is super expensive. So begins their quest to find and read the novels. Over the course of this adventure, both girls talk about the challenges they face (Neesha has cerebral palsy, and Gabby has a shitty boyfriend who doesn't think being bisexual is real, and the recent loss of her mother.) and grow comfortable with each other.

I loved watching these girls grow close, learn to help each other, and fall in love. And, you get two stories for the price of one, as you also get to enjoy the Navigator Nozomi story. Plus, love the Revolutionary Girl Utena mention.

I definitely recommend this book for any queer reader, especially those that love manga, and I think the way both the cerebral palsy and PTSD were handled was well done. No complaints from me. Kind of reminds me of some personal experiences, in honesty.

Two girls on a quest to collect every book in their favorite series and they might fall in love on the journey. My goal this year was to read more characters with disabilities. I had yet to read a YA book with cerebral palsy and I loved learning about Neesha's daily life with braces and balance. The pacing and some of the details just did not work for me. I liked the main character until it felt like she had no real flaws. She's an activist, a great student, a seamstress, and emotionally intelligent (and maybe almost qualified for a Paralympics team?). While Gabby the other main character, feels less developed. I would recommend this to my teen readers who enjoy manga and cosplay and could see themselves in the girl's positions.

A YA slice-of-life graphic novel with sapphic romance featuring a half Puerto Rican-half Mexican bisexual main character.

An adorable story about two girls who begin the journey of their friendship thanks to Gabby's insistence of being friends with the fellow new girl at the school and their shared love for a manga series of which they both have not seen through the end!

And so, a book club, with just the two of them, is born. As they go on their quest in search of the rest of the series, they find much more than just the books, they find understanding and love.

This was adorable. A cute story that didn’t shy away from handling topics such as the harsh realities of living with a disability, dealing with trauma, PTSD, and bi erasure/biphobia.

I also liked that both the women were sapphics of color.

One thing I did not like, a thing that kept me from loving this book wholly, was the cheating. I admit, Josh is a shitty biphobic git, but couldn't Gabby have ended things with him before kissing Neesha? I appreciate that she was honest about the kiss with Josh but that whole thing could have been avoided and I wish the book had gone a different route there.

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for the ARC.

The book “Navigating With You” by Jeremy Whitley is a moving work and full of fun. The novel powerfully shows the challenges that come with relationships and personal growth. Whitley has well-developed characters who are easy to relate to, making it easy to lose yourself in their tales. The language used is direct and emotional, engaging you into the story from the very beginning. This makes it a highly interesting novel that stays with you forever , and everything about the book was just perfect and mindblowing .

thank you for this writing this beautiful book and for this eARC.

Phenomenal! Loved it! 5 stars! Charming well-developed characters, a fun and unique premise, and an excellent execution. Neesha’s identity as a lesbian disabled Black girl and Gabby’s as a bisexual Latinx girl were both handled wonderfully, with elements throughout that embrace and represent those aspects of their identities while still providing full and nuanced characters.

Gabby is a surfer and an older sister who loves her family and misses her mom she lost a year ago, and seeks to keep her memory alive through family recipes and traditions.
Neesha is a costumer who loves cosplay and does custom commissions for cons in her area, and a daughter who is close to her mom and struggling to stay connected to her dad after a recent divorce.
Both girls have hopes and dreams and hobbies and relationships outside any one aspect of their identities, and bond as new girls in school that loved but never finished the same manga about a girl 2nd in command in spaceship races.

They spend the year after they meet hunting down each volume overtime and reading together to discuss, while growing in friendship and developing mutual crushes. The manga serves as a fantastic tool of a story within a story that helps to represent their own real life struggles and pivotal decisions at key times, be it standing up for yourself or deciding to accept a chance to be vulnerable.

Topics like how to be a supportive friend or partner to someone who needs an accommodation like a slower pace, is in crisis and needs gentle comfort, or sharing a past experience in which struggles like racism or biphobia were invalidated are handled perfectly. We consistently see one of the girls respond respectfully and supportively to one another, and the positive response of how validating and affirming it is. For the bad we see either brief interactions of malicious or ignorant passerby getting it wrong, or a short retelling of a past experience. But the negative is always brief and balanced out by experiencing the positive now. It’s handled honestly but in a way that doesn’t force us to watch these sweet girls be mistreated, and emphasizes the way to support and encourage others.

Their friendship and eventual romance feels genuine and well-earned, and I loved that they got to know one another’s families as well. An absolute treat. And I was just excited to see how the manga would turn out as they were!

I received an ARC from NetGalley. Thank you Mad Cave Studios for approving me! What a fantastic graphic novel, my review is my (very enthusiastic) honest opinion.
I will absolutely check out more by the author and the publisher, and I’ve already recommended this to two friends today before writing this review.

oh to fall in love over a shared dedication to obsure, tricky-to-track-down media <3

overall i enjoyed this and there's a lot to like about it; it's always a joy coming across queer disability rep. will always and forever love the "person A is quiet and keeps to themselves and needs to be adopted by more outgoing person B" relationship dynamic. very neat having the manga act as a story within a story.

my only gripe is that while this story deals with a range of mature issues, it does so in quite a surface level way, which makes the pacing feel choppy as everything feels a bit rushed, and also makes the characters come across as younger than they're actually supposed to be.

4.5 ⭐️

Characters 9/10
Atmosphere 9/10
Writing 8/10
Plot 8/10
Intrigue 9/10
Logic 8/10
Enjoyment 10/10

Navigating With You follows two young women who start at a new school after relocating to North Carolina. This chance encounter leads to them starting a manga book club and becoming quick friends, despite Neesha's initial hesitation. Through their search for an obscure manga, they grow closer than anticipated and navigate the crazy world together in new and fun ways.

I really enjoyed this graphic novel. It beautifully tackles some tough issues, including racial matters, grief, living with disability, and the queer experience. The romance is cute and feels genuine. I love Gabby's radical honesty with Neesha's mom. Overall, it was a funny and refreshing read.

The plot was really good for the slice-of-life genre, it was my favorite part, following the girls on their adventure to find all volumes in a manga (and then we could read the manga too!).
I almost liked the manga inside this graphic novel more than the graphic novel on itself lol

But the characters to me were....just ok. Their struggles felt real, but I couldn't really connect to the romance bit between them. It felt forced or childish at times.

Navigating With You is the perfect wholesome comic. Suitable for YA and adult audiences, this disability & LGBTQIA+ rep comic shows how a new friendship blossoms into a romance, with family and ex trauma sewn in. The art style was gorgeous to look at, I would highly recommend this comic to everyone!

A beautifully drawn graphic novel that weaves the "real" world, with the one we escape to by reading. The characters were well developed as they embarked on an emotional reimagining of who they are.

I’m a sucker for a book about nerd culture, and this is a wonderful one- with great diversity and representation to boot! There were a couple of emotional beats that felt a bit out of place or sudden, but overall this book is incredibly sweet and fun. Bonus points for the creativity in art style changes as well!

very good drawings and I liked the story very much. it's such a feel-good cute story of connection through similar experiences and art.

Thank you to Mad Cave Studios and NetGalley for a free advanced reader’s copy. I received this copy in exchange for my honest review.

A fun YA contemporary read that deals with some heavy topics. Navigating with you follows high schoolers Neesha and Gabby as they both move to North Carolina with their families. As the two new girls in town, they’re kind of thrown together by circumstances and Gabby is very eager to make friends with the standoffish Neesha. I loved watching their friendship grow as they connected over an old manga series they both read in middle school. The way each girl falls in love is so unique to their characters and endearing in different ways.
I mentioned earlier that some heavy topics are discussed but I think they’re done in a way that would seem approachable to most young readers and relatable. I particularly liked the way Navigating With You framed living with a disability (Neesha has cerebral palsy), verbal abuse in a relationship between teenagers, and mourning the loss of someone you care about.

I was also happy to see that their relationship flourishes without a homophobia plot line, it was refreshing to see the parents in the book painted as safe to be around and talk to, the amount that Neesha speaks with her mom in particular made my heart melt, I loved how her mom was her biggest cheerleader! All in all, the connection between these two girls was fun to watch unfold and sweet to read and I highly recommend it to the YA reader in your life! Or anyone, really!