Lumberjanes Graphic Novel Review

Lumberjanes: Volume One and Volume Two

Written by Noelle Stevenson

Volume One (#1-4)

Number of pages: 128

Average Rating: 3.91/5 stars

My Rating: 4/5 stars

Published April 7th 2015

Read in July 2016

Volume Two (#5-8)

Number of pages: 112

Average Rating: 4.22/5 stars

My Rating: 2/5 stars

Published October 13th 2015

Read in July 2016

Summary according to Goodreads

At Miss Qjunzilla Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet’s camp for hard-core lady-types, things are not what they seem. Three-eyed foxes. Secret caves. Anagrams. Luckily, Jo, April, Mal, Molly, and Ripley are five rad, butt-kicking best pals determined to have an awesome summer together. And they’re not gonna let a magical quest or an array of supernatural critters get in their way! 

My Thoughts

I went into this graphic novel series completely blind, just randomly selecting it off of my library shelves. I was very pleasantly surprised, with the pacing, illustrations, and characters. Each character has a very distinct voice, and adds something different to the story. 

One of my favourite things about this series is its focus on young women, and how they figure everything out for themselves. There is elements of empowerment, friendship, and supernatural to add a twist! Going into the second compilation, there is a lot more mythical elements that I was not a fan of, and instead was left thinking “where did that come from? What is going on?”

My only issue with the first novel was that the plot did not make a lot of sense to me. For the first few pages I could not help but wonder if I had picked up a sequel by accident, but then I realized you are just thrown straight into the story. Going into the second novel I had a lot more issues, the biggest being the pacing and mythology randomly thrown in. I found it unfortunate that this sequel was not as strong as the first volume, but there is nothing that happened in this that makes me want to continue. It was not what I was expecting from the series at all, and will not be reading any more from it. 

This is shelved under young adult, but, to me, it feels much more like a middle-grade read. The language is very light and can be silly at times, but if you go into it with the right mind set, I think you will really enjoy it! I read it very easily and think it is a great way to catch up on your TBR, but is not something that I want to continue.