2,5

Thank you Oni Press and Netgalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for my honest review!

This graphic novel sadly didn't work for me.

I want to start by saying that I loved how the graphic novel looked! The usage of color was great and I could tell that the artist knows how to convey emotions through color. The illustrations were also very beautiful.

But darn, this book was a bit too messy for me. I understand that this graphic novel shows the complexity of us humans and how our lives aren't perfect and can be messy. However, this was the type of messy where I didn't root for most of the characters. Except for Lou dearest, our unproblematic bestie and Jackie, who was just trying to study. It felt a bit like too much drama in a small graphic novel.
I think that this story would've worked best as a series of graphic novels in which you could get to know each character better and subsequently zoom deeper into the messiness that is life.

Considering that this is Strapp's first graphic novel, I think that she has a lot of potential to grow. Even though this story wasn't for me, I look forward to maybe read a future graphic novel of hers.

How Could You is a graphic novel that is full of an absolutely amazing diverse set of characters, the characters felt real and messy. They made real world mistakes and may have not made the best choices , but it made it feel more raw.
These are some very real topics and concepts that are touched on not only for college students but pretty much any one navigating the ways of their hearts. Again some of the actions may have not been what i personally liked and agreed with , however that is how life goes. Its full of hurt, heartache and misunderstandings. The relationships between all the characters were pretty well written, some of it got a tad confusing just do to the amount of characters. You can really find at least one character to connect to. You get a feeling that they are almost trapped or scare of their own emotions and that is such a raw feeling that so many people go through and to have it written and illustrated in such a way is absolutely amazing.

The story itself is 200 pages and the pacing is a tad fast with how big of a cast of characters there is. Due to the length and the amount of characters involved i wish that the book was a tad longer and the pacing was a smidgen slower.

The art is vibrant and beautiful and really reflects the good and the scarry so well.

There are a few parts I personally didnt love, but im not a huge fan of miscommunication in stories. However there were also parts that had be giggling and smiling.

This was the debut novel for Ren Strapp, Im excited to see more.


Thank you NetGalley and Oni Press for the Digital ARC for review.
#HowCouldYou #NetGalley

I missed the window to read "How Could You" on Netgalley (archived) but my library did purchase a copy. So when it came in, I checked it out to read. This story surprised me for how hard things were for the characters. I didn't expect the messiness of involved, and it made me sad how friendships were lost in the balance.

I think this was well-crafted. The coloring really added to the novel and the feelings therein. The characters all made real, messy decisions that were often frustrating, but that's what made them so real. I don't know anyone who escaped college unscathed with all the same friends they went in with. Or even all the ones they met and loved there. You graduate and some people just stop orbiting you. Either because of life or circumstances or choices you/they make. This did a solid job articulating the feelings involved in college and love and friendship. And especially within the queer, and implied neurodivergent(??), communities.

I related strongly to Lou. When Molly and Lou attended the party and Lou multiple times asked Molly to stay with them cause they weren't comfortable in that setting, I felt that. I have been that person many times. It was hard to watch Molly make so many bad decisions, but I don't think they made her a bad person. Just messy and confused. Same as any other college queer.

I hope to see more from Ren Strapp. This is exactly my genre of graphic novels.

Thanks so much to Netgalley for the advanced copy (even though I forgot to read it in time and had to get a different edition).

I loved the drawings and the complexity that the author brought to the story. The characters were very well developed. All the dilemmas in the plot were interesting.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the copy.

I loved reading this.

The characters and their experiences were so relatable, they were all very well written.

I love to read more like this in the future

Thanks to NetGalley and Oni Press for providing me with this arc

An engaging debut full of queer college drama between sapphic friends, roommates, and lovers over the course of their spring semester. Break ups, one-sided crushes, hook-ups, and situationships fill this aptly named graphic novel in which multiple characters make some questionable decisions.

A delightfully messy graphic novel about four queer people desperately trying to make connections and find their own identities. Perfect for those who like difficult characters, relationship drama, and multiple colliding storylines.

Greatly enjoyed the artwork and thought the characters had a lot of potential. However, the story felt disorganised and the messiness of the characters personalities (which were enjoyable) enhanced the disorganisation.

There’s definitely potential in the layered characters and the art style

An engrossing soapy queer story of college friendship meets romance meets angst. I loved seeing the characters grow throughout the story.

*3.5
A messy queer graphic novel about the web of relationships in a friend group with beautiful coloring and illustrations. Unfortunately, the characters were nearly all so unlikeable in a way that didn't work For Me. But if you're looking for messy gays, here they are.

Oh, this really brought back memories of my friend group in college! Messy and sweet and packed full of brand new adults doing their best and navigating their new world. It was also delightfully queer, which was the best part!

Thank you to Oni Press and NetGalley for this ARC.

These lesbians are MESSY! This was kind of exhausting for me. Love triangles..love squares? I don’t know. Everyone was involved with everyone.

I’m not sure if I enjoyed it but I enjoyed the art style.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

How Could You follows a group of college students in the wake of breakups as they embark on journeys of self discovery and budding romance.

There's so much going on in this arguably short graphic novel, and I love it all! A (arguably quite large) stellar cast of characters, a plot that hinges almost entirely on the internal experiences of those characters, moody panels, nightmare sequences, heartbreak and self-love, there's plenty to appreciate about this graphic novel. I was convinced this couldn't possibly be a debut, but Ren Strapp just seems to be that good. What these characters go through is messy and dramatic, but in the end I found myself full of joy and love and hope for them.

⭐⭐✨2.5/5

I was really excited for this graphic novel, but it unfortunately just didn’t hit the mark. There was so much amazing rep in this story, including several LGBTQ+ and POC characters as well as a cane user. And the artwork was amazing. I truly loved the graphics. But the story itself left a lot to be desired. There was so much going on in this story, but about 95% was just straight up drama. The characters were all very immature - they felt more like freshman in high school than juniors and seniors in college. There was also a character who I thought was nonbinary but their pronouns shifted midway and there was never any discussion around their identity - so I really have no idea. All the characters felt very shallow with little depth to who they were, even around some very big topics like identity that could have been explored in this story. This story was basically one big dumpster fire of drama and poor choices. Nothing got settled or resolved, and it basically just ended with a giant shoulder shrug.

The graphics in this book were amazing, and so was the rep. I struggled a little bit with the story due to the fact that it felt nothing was resolved in the end and certain things in the story didn’t get talked about. I did otherwise enjoy it, though.

An excellent graphic novel about a group of college students navigating the paths of identity and friendship in their final years of college. The artwork is beautiful and the colouring is bright. I sometimes found it hard to stay abreast of the who’s who and the different relationships but maybe that is also the point of the story with the students, losing themselves and then finding themselves and having revelations about who they truly are to themselves and to each other. It is also quite fast paced but very engaging. A good read.

Copy provided via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

Here's another graphic novel I read towards the end of 2024 that I didn't love that much!

I loved the art and I loved how dynamic it felt all the way through, but the quick pace sometimes left me grasping at straws as to where we were and who we were with, and there were so many side characters I constantly mixed them up. Everybody was pretty horrible and they were all stuck in very minimal plot so I'm already struggling to recall anything past the basic summary.

On the other hand, though, I appreciate that everybody was horrible - it made the book feel real and raw, which I feel is often rare with queer characters considering that we as queer people are still expected to be perfect and/or sexy in order to be tolerated. More messy people like this!

I had my little issues with this one but I'd confidently recommend it to anybody looking for contemporary queer graphic novels.

I liked this book, but it did feel a little unsatisfying at the end. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but this is definitely a book for someone looking for a graphic novel about queer women being very real and messy.

Rating: 3.5

A wonderfully queer debut graphic novel about the woes of dating and falling in love in your early twenties.

All the characters were very complex and were so intertwined that sometimes it made it difficult to remember who was dating who, friends with, or exes of. Could have been longer to establish these relationships more clearly however I liked that this was a quick read.

The artwork and colouring was absolutely stunning and I loved the bonus content at the back where the artist shared how they used colour within the story.

Definitely a story you would want to read in one sitting so you don’t forget important information about the characters. Unlike myself who read this over a couple weeks. I would be very interested in reading more from this creator in the future.

Life so messy, especially in your early 20s and this graphic novel encapsulates that perfectly! We don't spend much time with the characters, but they are so well fleshed-out that you know them from the first couple of panels. I loved the use of colours to change the mood too.

The art was fantastic - especially the colorization.

I hope there will be another volume so we witness them grow even more and become the awesome humans they can be.