⭐⭐⭐
Rep: Sapphic relationship, Chinese Love Interest

💗 Sapphic Romance
🌍 Set in France
😖 Trials of Living in New Country
🖌️ Watercolour Style Graphic Novel
😔 Dealing with Loneliness

What I Liked
1) I really loved the portrayal of the MC finally getting to live in 'beautiful Paris' and realising that she's not happy. I think everyone can relate to the experience of finally getting something you thought you wanted and realising that it's not everything you wanted it to be.

2) The illustrations of Hong Kong were absolutely gorgeous!!

3) I love how broken the dialogue is because they can't understand each other and then by the end it's written less sporadically as they can finally understand each other.

What I Disliked
1) I think when formatting a graphic novel, there should be too many words in one area as it gets pretty overwhelming and this book suffered from that issue. There were large paragraphs of text which is not what I'm looking for when I go into a graphic novel.

2) It was just a pretty surface level romance. It was cute but it's not memorable to me.

Thank you to Netgalley, IDW Publishing and James Albon for this eARC in exchange for an honest review

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-book for review through Netgalley. Content warning for homophobia.)

-- 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 where necessary --

Sarah is a Brit living in Paris. If we are to believe Netflix romcoms, her days should be filled with whimsy and romance ... instead, she is slogging away in a vaguely defined but soul-crushing job filled with unlikable alpha male types, further alienated by her poor grasp of French, and desperately lonely. That is, until a chance encounter with a Chinese au pair named Ping. Though they communicate in an elementary mix of English, French, Cantonese, and hand gestures, Ping seems to understand Sarah like no one else. Just as their relationship - and grasp of one another's languages - begins to blossom, Ping is fired from her job, forcing her to return to Hong Kong. Can Sarah go back to her old, pre-Ping life? Does she even want to?

LOVE LANGUAGES is a pretty interesting meditation on the complexities of human language, empathy, friendship, and love. As Sarah and Ping wander the streets of Paris, they - and we - overhear conversations taking place in myriad languages. Likewise, as they attempt to communicate, we're only privy to bits and pieces of their conversation, perhaps leaving the readers as disoriented at Sarah must be. The artwork and storytelling are lovely, though it sometimes feels like the beginning is a bit drawn out. (Just kiss already!) The ending makes it all worthwhile.

This book was like being kissed in a dream you didn’t know you were having. Love Languages is not just a romance—it’s a watercolor fever dream of longing, awkward translations, and that slow-burn ache when friendship tips into something deeper and scarier. James Albon paints emotion with such raw delicacy that I found myself rereading panels just to sit with the feeling a little longer. The way Sarah and Ping stumble through language—literal and emotional—felt so real it physically hurt (in the best way). It’s queer, it’s quiet, it’s devastatingly tender. If you’ve ever fallen in love in the pauses between words, this one will wreck you.

This is a gorgeously illustrated romantic graphic novel. I seriously enjoyed the story arch and the color choices that were made. Thank you to NetGalley for the arc! If you’re looking for a didn’t know you were queer until you met the person this is the one!

05/03/2025 || Love Languages by James Albon || #LoveLanguages #NetGalley #QueerReads #GraphicNovels #Sapphic #Lesbian

Thank you NetGalley, James Albon, and IDW Publishing | Top Shelf Productions for making this e-ARC available!

Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author and myself.
All of my thoughts are my own~

5 Stars

What worked for me:
Between the gorgeous story-telling and uniquely beautiful illustrations I was simply head over heels in love with this entire graphic novel and so glad I requested it! I have shared it's StoryGraph and GoodRead's informational pages with a handful of friends and book club group chats I am apart of!

Sarah and Ping meant the world to me while I was reading and I plan to buy a copy for my shelves!

I loved the cross culture and mixing and blending of languages. That is a true sign of love - the ability to find the middle, to work together to get the message across and helping one another find your voice and ability to speak!

I get goosebumps thinking about it!


What did not work for me:
How dare this graphic novel end!

Jokes aside, I hope Albon explores more lovely graphic novels like this and we get more amazingly gorgeous works like Love Languages

Sarah Huxley is an Englishwoman working for a business in Paris. One day, she meets Ping Loh, who works as an au pair for a Hong Kong couple living in Paris. The two bond over their shared struggle with picking up the French language. They start to learn each other’s languages, creating their own private dialect to communicate as they grow closer.

I enjoyed the story and the way the author chose to include the translations for many of the French and Cantonese phrases for clarity of the story while also providing a view of how they combined the languages together. Personally, I did not care for the artwork in this graphic novel, specifically the way people’s skins had random red blotches on them, like everyone was suffering from a rash.

Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book.

Absolutely gorgeous artwork and a perfectly paced, sweet, quick romance. The art's way of depicting the multilingual conversations, as well as the change once things 'clicked', was clever and felt initmiately familiar to anyone with experience in language learning.

This was genuinely such a cute and endearing story about love and work and languages of course! The characters and their lives felt very real and close to home. I enjoyed the art style a lot as well. When Sarah and Ping are finally able to understand each other better because they've learned enough of each others languages thats when it really gets good because their communication goes way up! Of course they do have a very low point in the novel that is upsetting but watching them come back together again was beautiful.

This was a cute little graphic novel about two foreigners trying to make their own ways in France, despite a language barrier. I loved the art style the of the book. I also loved how multiple languages were represented throughout the book, underscoring just how much we all have in common despite what language we speak. As a twenty-something moving through the world and struggling to find my place and make friends, this book was a gentle reminder that people are people everywhere and that often it’s the little things that weave us together.

4/5 ⭐️s
🌶️ - very low spice, one slightly graphic image

LOVES:
- The way language and translations were done was really neat. There were so many languages throughout and it was fun to try to pick out ones that I recognized!
- The color story was beautiful and felt symbolic
- So relatable. The language barrier, loneliness, social media, job burnout, confusing feelings about art, the awkwardness of social interactions, gross work bros 🤮
- Sarah’s inner monologue is quite funny at times 😆 and again, so relatable
- The development of their relationship and the conclusion was so subtle and cute!

Thanks to NetGalley and Top Shelf Comix for the eARC 💝 Available now!

I really liked the story, a romance between two people who both felt out of place in their environments. Some pages felt overwhelmingly full but I liked the artistic style more than I minded the full pages.

An incredible exploration of love from an incredible variety of approaches, including language. The illustrations are the highlight of this book, they are fabulous.

Thank you to Charlesbridge for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review!

A great comic about racism, sexuality, living abroad, social expectations and prejudice.

Once I started reading it I was unable to put the book away.

Love Languages is a sometimes dreamily, sometimes coldly, painted graphic novel of friendship that turns into more. We have Sarah, a corporate manager working away from her hometown London in Paris, who meets Ping, an au pair from Hong Kong. Together they navigate various language and cultural barriers, learning each other and the world of expat-overseas workers between them.

If I, someone who reads a lot of queer books, said I would have preferred if this story stayed platonic...? I mean good for them who found each other in a romantic way after getting to know each other as such unmired friends, floating about Paris as lonely individuals despite the people around them that do speak their own home languages but! Their friendship was the most important part, and how important it is to really... connect with someone when you're feeling so alone and disconnected - Sarah in her cold corporate world (reflected in blues and muted tones), and Ping who has seen the dangers of how the family she works for want to raise their baby and the life that may not be the best for him. The colors are most rich when they are together, sharing art and food and friendship.

It took a bit of time to get used to the dialogue, but I see it as an intentionality to sort of draw the reader into how fuzzy a brain can get when trying to learn one and a half new languages while also using your own while also trying to work and go about daily life and communicate.

Thank you to IDW Publishing and Top Shelf Productions for the eARC in exchange for review!

This was very cute, but unfortunately kinda difficult to read at times.. That's probably a me issue tho, because trying to read tiny lettering can give me a headache...
Anyway the story itself was quite cute, a bit difficult to follow at times tho because I couldn't read some of it. I liked it despite that!

So yeah overall I would recommend it if you want a cute and fast graphic novel to read!

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read this book.

This is a very cute story of how language and love impact our lives. The art style is beautiful and the romance between the two main characters felt real and natural.

A great and uplifting story that is also a quick read!

this was a cute little graphic novel! it wasn't really anything extraordinary and i didn't really connect with the characters that much, but in general it was fine. as someone who loves languages and language learning, it was really fun to see how the two main characters communicated in a mix of three, and also the little scenes in between that showed the use of others in the city. the art style was also pretty nice!

overall, i'd recommend this if you're looking for a quick and enjoyable read, but know that it likely won't stick with you for too long. i read this about a month ago at the time of writing this review and i can still see some of the pages in my mind, but i could not tell you the names of the characters.

Two foreign girls cross paths in Paris, and learn how to speak each other’s languages while also falling in love.

Love Languages is an ode to the beauty and hardships of learning languages, but also deals with sapphic love, patriarchy and being able to stop working on something that it’s not fulfilling to you. As someone who loves learning languages, watercolors and sapphic love, I was very excited about the premise of this graphic novel.

The author delivered on the multi-lingual aspect. I really appreciated how much French and Mandarin this book had, without it being confusing at any point, because the author always added the translation in English in another color, which it’s something you’d never be able to do in a book that it’s not a graphic novel.

Something that really annoys me is people who are native speakers of English not bothering to learn other languages even if they are foreigners. Sarah, one of the main characters, is from London, but she’s trying to learn French (because she’s in Paris) and Mandarin (the other main character is from Hong Kong). I loved that-I know it’s the bare minimum, but the reality is that this often doesn’t happen!

It pains me a bit not to rate this higher, because I really appreciated everything related to knowing all the languages and mixing them all together, but I wasn’t emotionally invested in the story. I felt the pacing was too slow at the beginning, then it was moving too fast. I also didn’t like the third act problem, I thought it was done for the drama. They could have talked instead of doing what they did.
Another thing I actually loved was a couple of scenes about their feelings for each other (that first kiss, I adored the whole drawing and all the writing explaining how Sarah was feeling).

Overall, I’m glad I read this but it could have been better. I loved the premise and the multi-lingual aspect, but the pacing was a bit off and I wished I was more emotionally invested in the whole story, and not just in a few scenes.


*rating: 2.5/5 stars


I kindly received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

DNF 48%

The art was cool, and the layering of languages in the art was pretty cool as English, French and Cantonese are all flying around.

The story just wasn't grabbing me. The main character spent so much time talking about herself and what she told Ping about herself, she didn't really show that she was all that interested in Ping. It seemed like Ping was doing all the heavy lifting in the relationship. That wasn't a dynamic that I really wanted to spend more time with.

It started so wonderfully. I loved the multilingual speech bubbles & dialogues, as well as the translations underneath. I only know a few basic words in French and never learned Cantonese, so this was nice to expand my vocabulary a bit. Especially the way they both started to learn the other’s native tongue, through pantomime and hand gestures, the way Ping explained some letters and James visually illustrated it. Beautiful.
I grew up bilingual, and with English being my third language, could relate to Sarah a lot. Also because I’m learning around 4 languages at the same time at the moment (well, not actively and with a lot of breaks, but still).
- How awkward small talk can become with a language barrier.
- How you struggle to find words in all languages you know because nothing describes what you’re feeling or you just forget them all (#byelingual) at once.
- How you forget your native tongue when you haven’t spoken it in a while.
- How your mind expands and the type of feeling you experience, once you’re on that level that makes you think & dream in that language. It’s quite indescribable, something one needs to experience it themselves, but James managed to find resonating words and pictures on how he at least perceives it.
Generally, James has a talent to describe and illustrate certain experiences and emotions. Poetically abstract, yet at the same time so greifbar (tangible).

I found it a bit sad when Sarah reached a level of almost-fluency where the overlapping bubbles weren’t needed anymore and it was only English. I prefer when dialogue is written in the original language they’re speaking in. But I guess it would’ve been too much for some readers, since at some point they only speak Cantonese.

As for their relationship, I loved how realistic their first meetings were kept. None of the “I’ll bump into you now because I’m the main character and I’m thinking of you so you’ll magically appear” which never happens in real life, no matter how close you live to each other.
It was very sweet how they got to know each other. Since Ping already spoke a bit of English, it was mostly Sarah learning Cantonese. And quite incredible how fast she picked up on it. (Although it’s mostly Ping’s Cantonese she learned, as later seen with Ping’s friends. ;))
I really adored the slow slice of life, living in the moment, enjoying the little things. How their friendship slowly became something romantic. How Sarah slowly realized she’s sexually/physically attracted to Ping, not just friendly/platonically. Very smooth transitions, thanks to the slowness, because we could get to know the characters at the same pace as them. So beautifully done.

However, then there’s a turn, a bit of a drama towards the end. The homophobia came a bit unexpected, although not surprising given their age. Still, the way it was handled was so cliche and such an overused trope ... so contrasting, alienating to the first half. There’s a happy end at least, but in-between their kiss and that ending there weren’t many pages, yet still could’ve been done so much better. More mature. Realistic, sure, but unnecessary. So many other ways to do it and still keep the realism. Felt like I was suddenly reading a YA rather than (N)A. And I would’ve liked a deeper – or any – explanation from Ping.
That‘s unfortunately the reason why it got a 0.75 star less.

Other than that little part, I do love it. Definitely a book I’d like to have in my shelves.

The art style is very nice too, fits the story. The way the colors have been used as part of storytelling, especially the complementary contrasts in the first few pages (i.e., blue surroundings, while Ping has a yellow jacket). Amazing how it’s all drawn on paper with watercolors too. In today’s digital age, that’s a love letter in itself.
I also liked the pink lineart sometimes. Which is technically the actual skin color of white people, so should be used more often. :P

Ps. Love languages become a small topic when they’re discussing how love is expressed in those 3 languages. I really do find it interesting how most asian languages don’t use the direct “I love you”, whereas that’s so common in the west.

~

Thank you to IDW Publishing on Netgalley for an eARC. The book is set to be released on May 6, 2025.

-Ayxan Solongo, 05.05.25