This was just adorable!

Sarah and Ping are both so cute. I love how they have entirely different lived but they bond over their shared struggles about living Paris and learning French.

There's a little bit of Drama mixed in, but this mostly a heartwarming and lovely story. The art is beautiful too!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

As someone who speaks two languages and is attempting to learn a third, the utter chaos that was the mix of languages throughout this story hit superrr hard. Like, those visuals are what my brain feels like sometimes. I found the gradual development of understanding between Sarah and Ping to be very organic and fun to watch. Sarah's moment of realization that she was instinctually starting to think in Cantonese was so perfect—I remember the first time I ever dreamed in French and was conjugating in my sleep; it was such a cool yet also surreal experience!

That said, I didn't really find there to be romantic chemistry between Sarah and Ping at all. Even their friendship felt very slow to start. Ultimately, they felt like close friends, or the platonic equivalent of the "they were roommates" meme lol. So if you're inclined to pick this up because of the queer romantic subplot, you will likely be disappointed. And I also didn't love the art style, but that's just a preference thing. On the flip side, if you're someone who's really interested in languages or cross-cultural exchange, I would recommend picking it up!

thank you netgalley for giving me an earc

i really loved the themes and the art style but sadly i found it a bit boring

Thank you Netgalley for sending me an eARC of this book!

I have to start off by saying that I absolutely ADORE the art style, it is so pretty and cute.

Overall this was a very cute book and definitely something I'd recommend to anyone who wants a short and sweet sapphic comic about two women who find love despite a language barrier.

My only real critique with this book is that I wish it wouldn't have been so short because I would have loved to have seen more of Sarah but especially of Ping.

LoveLanguages by James Albon is a light hearted and adorable graphic novel about how two women who find love in a country they barely know. These two women ran in completely different circles, had stark differences in their circumstances but as they say that love always finds its way. Sarah, our protagonist, had always been an ambitious person. She achieved all the good grades and found herself in Paris away from home, leading a lonely life in the corporate rat race. She often found herself being the subject of her juniors' taunts and mockery because of two significant things- she was English and a woman. I mean how dare she? No?
The jeers never crushed her spirit but she definitely desired to socialise. The one thing that had always kept her from that was the language. She had learnt French from language apps and classrooms but are they ever enough when the locals start speaking? No. But one day she crosses paths with Ping, a Hong Kong resident, who was working as a nanny for a pair of wealthy parents living in Paris. What do they bond over? French, of course.
They start communicating in a concoction of French, English and Cantonese. They start creating the perfect blend of languages for themselves, a shared secret. And slowly their friendship blossom into love but there's the catch. Even with their personal dialect, they find it very difficult to confess their feelings.
This cutesy sapphic romance has the most delightful art throughout the book and I had such a wonderful time reading it.

Thank you NetGalley for my ARC!

I absolutely adored this book. Its speech bubbles are incredibly well designed, immersing the reader in the story while encouraging them to think about the act of switching between three languages.

The art was beautiful and the imagery tied the story together.

My only gripe is that I wanted more to the resolution. I wanted more to the ending. However, it has closure so I can’t complain too much!

Overall, this was so well done and such an interesting portrayal of love.

This is a gorgeously painted graphic novel about two women, one from England, the other from Hong Kong, who find each other while living in Paris and slowly fall in loves. There's some longer sections of text in here, which I really enjoyed because the writing was absolutely beautiful. Something about it didn't quite push it to a full five stars, but I highly recommend this beautiful book.

I absolutely adored this graphic novel. It shows that friendship and love can transcend all barriers. I related a lot to the main characters. It can be hard to find friends and love as an adult.

This book did a lovely job of depicting finding new friendships and love as an adult. I loved the way the artist depicted the low colourless feeling of being lonely and miserable at your job, and the vibrancy of feeling seen and understood. Can wait for more people to have the ability to read it, so grateful I was able to read it early!

Love Languages is a graphic novel that follows two foreigners, Sarah and Ping, who live in Paris and bond over their shared struggle with the French language. As the women grow closer they begin to rely on their own language — love.

The art in this book wasn't my favorite stylistically, however it tells the story really well. The use of color is incredibly well done. This is a love story, but it's also a story of self discovery. When Sarah is at work she's surrounded by dark blues almost as if she's adrift or drowning at sea. But then Ping arrives, dressed in yellow as a light to guide her to shore. By the end the colors are brighter and Sarah has found meaning professionally and personally.

The storytelling was interesting. I haven't read many graphic novels that use so many blocks of text. Albon inserts narration from Sarah so it almost reads like a mix of novel and graphic novel. It was a unique form of storytelling that feels perfect for a story about characters learning to communicate. Text and art are their own forms of communications after all, so it was really fitting.

I liked this one and would recommend it.

I enjoyed reading this book. To find different t ways of love. You can see that there will be some readers who can relate and will not relate.

After Himawari House and Love Languages, I have all my fingers crossed that contemporary slice-of-life, coming-of-age books about (especially Asian!) language/culture is becoming a thing!

The narrative quality of the storytelling distinctly made it feel like I was following along a biographical journey of a real person. It reminded me of artists I follow on social media that make comics about their lives. This sort of art style isn’t usually my thing, but I had to appreciate the lovely watercolor and attention to detail in the careful outlining and patterns. There is something European about the curvy lines and silhouettes, which is very well-suited to the French setting. I loved how vibrant colours would seep in whenever Ping appeared, or even just within Hong Kong, compared to the bleak monochrome of Paris, where Sarah hated living.

I enjoyed the way language (and the process of learning it) was portrayed in the speech bubbles, as well as the depiction of the loneliness/cultural dysphoria of being an expat, social anxiety, grappling with work-life, and the pressure to “succeed”. I think it also cleverly shows the sociopolitical centrism of white women, who tend to easily excuse the most vile behaviour from white men, plus feel the need to save face in front of them. Sarah’s initial embarrassment towards communication struggles was in stark contrast to Ping’s unabashed willingness to connect across their mutual language barriers. (The emojis!) I always felt that some western cultures *really* depend on certain social rhythms and coming off “cool”. Given Sarah’s anxiety (and her terrible job with American work ethic and French assholes that made me want to breathe fire), it just made *sense* that she found confort in Ping’s world of carefree, warm connection instead. Reading about characters quitting their jobs and beginning new lives will never not be heartwarming to me.

I enjoyed the lesbian awakening! It was just a few pages (and some earlier subtext) and yet it spoke volumes. (Attraction, possesiveness, desire, joy denial, acceptance, self actualisation.) Also greatly appreciated the much-needed rep of Asian pocket mascs! I was wondering if this book would portray the difficulties Ping may face in being a Hong Konger and queer, but in the end I’m glad the book left it where it did. Sarah definitely grew a lot! But I didn’t connect with the characters as much as I’d hoped, given how much I was excited for the premise (queer, sapphic, contemporary, Asian, language/culture, graphic novel). Still required reading in the genre IMO! 3.75⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and IDW Publishing for providing an Advanced Reader’s Copy for an honest review! This is my first one. 🥹

I really am greatful to receive this arc because it was just an amazing story and the artwork throughout the book was phenomenal, and seeing an unlikely relationship between two different languages spark into something more was very satisfying to see.

To start my review, I'd like to send a big, big thank you to the author, James Albon, IDW Publishing, and NetGalley for the privilege of being able to read an advanced digital copy of Love Languages by James Albon. I will share my review to Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble upon release. I LOVED this adorable graphic novel that told the story of Sarah and Ping, two immigrants living in Paris who find commonality in learning another language. As they discover more and more about each other, living in Paris, and their relationship, you'll fall in love with love. The way they have their own little ways of communicating with each other is so common in all relationships, really, but particularly with your significant other, it's fairly easy to develop your own little language - phrases/words that both of you have a context for that make no sense to others. When we develop relationships with others, we do this with language and also with every other aspect, like physical touch and even non-verbal communication. I loved how this story made me think deeper about love, relationships, sexuality, identity, and pursuing happiness and friendship. The illustrations were so beautiful and eye-catching, and brought the characters to life in such a way that I couldn't stop reading. I know I'll want to read this one more than once, just simply to enjoy the art again. If you enjoyed Saga by Brian K. Vaughn, Blankets by Craig Thompson, or the Heartstopper series by Alice Oseman, I think you'd like this one.

Major tropes & themes:

- love & relationships (lgbtq)
- art & being creative
- communication/language
- identity/immigration
- modern love
- miscommunication
- Paris is a character


4.6/5 stars

A really beautiful story of a growing friendship and more. The colours mirror the mood with more blue in the boring sad corporate life and more yellow when Ping comes in and brightens Sarah's life.

I love how the languages mix up, multilingual experiences and friendships aren't often shown in books and by offering translations and writing in the original conversation language we can follow along while still representing the confusion of so many languages mixing.

I really hated Sarah's colleagues and the mean mimes in the first pages. The drawing style makes them really ugly people in the inside and outside.

And of course I love the queer ending which is a beginning for them but the end of this story.

I was just a bit confused when they used "ami.e" to mean friend and boyfriend/girlfriend when for me that always means friend but "copain/copine" can mean either friend or boyfriend/girlfriend.

A delightful and beautiful story of love and language, "Love Languages" will make you fill your cup. The story follows two foreigners forging a relationship with bits and pieces of three different languages.
We read about Sarah and Ping's relationship with language and watch as their love grows with their efforts, and it become this wonderful love story. The beautiful artwork compliments their romance perfectly. Of course, no romance is without some kind of twist, so prepare your heart for a little heartache.
The artist portrayal of mix and match words is such a unique concept and was a delightful representation of their conversations.
A great graphic novel for any sapphic readers collection, I highly recommend grabbing a copy if you enjoy visual story telling as well as a cozy romance graphic novel. Have I mentioned how lovely the artwork is?

A big thank you to the author and NetGalley for sending me an advance review copy for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I got this graphic novel as an ARC from Net galley.

It starts out very slow in my opinion and the writing style is a little odd with a combination of English, French, and Mandarin being used in combination. This makes it slow to read and follow. However, later in the book this goes away and then it really flew by for me.

The story itself is really heart warming though!

I absolutely adored this graphic novel about two strangers meet each other far from home and slowly build a home together.

Love Languages follows Sarah as she navigates a lonely life in Paris where she barely knows the language, hates her job, and is generally just not having a good time. Enter Ping, a Chinese au pair that enters Sarah's life like a hurricane and never leaves. They may not exactly speak the same language, but they are determined to understand each other.

I loved the inclusion of all of the languages being spoken around the main characters, and how translations were only used when necessary to point the reader to what was most important.

Ping and Sarah's story was adorable, and real and heartbreaking in the best way.

I loved the different languages that have been added. And the art it self is so gorgeous, I wish we got more of their love story but over all is very autumn season read for me. Which I love🤍

I would definitely recommend this to the people who want a chill read.

This was such a nuanced, heartfelt story of finding joy and companionship amid unfamiliarity. The art and dialogue styles really guided the reader through the emotions and narrative beats allowing us to feel lost and alone, then cautiously optimistic, socially doom-spiralling, etc. I loved all the ways language was used to denote tone of the setting, relationships, and indicate character and growth. Overall, a phenomenal story, well told and shared through emotionally evocative art.