Reviews

Broken Hearted

KELSEA O'CONNOR

Comics Will Break Your Heart (Roaring Brook Press) is the Vancouver artist Faith Erin Hicks’s first novel, a sweet coming-of-age story of two comics-obsessed teens in rural Nova Scotia. As a YA romance, this one is pretty run-of-the-mill, adapted for the comics nerd: Miriam and Weldon have their meet-cute in the struggling comics shop where Miriam works, when she saves new-in-town Weldon from the teen hooligans who are after him. Despite the discovery that Weldon is heir to the TomorrowMen comics fortune, and grandson of the man who stripped Miriam’s grandfather of fame and fortune, they strike up a friendship that develops into a summer romance. Besides the feud between their families, Miriam struggles with issues with her friends, what she wants to do after high school and the boredom of living in a small town. Comics Will Break Your Heart addresses various issues in the comics industry—such as intellectual property rights, fair payment for artists, the widening gap between artistic integrity and mainstream money with the advent of the major superhero film franchise, and criticisms of “fake geek girls”—but never in a way that feels overbearing. As something of a comics enthusiast myself (and someone who enjoys a YA romance), this book was a good time. I read it in nearly one sitting. Miriam had relatable problems, and Weldon was just glitzy enough to be a good suitor. My only complaint is that perhaps there was not as much delicious Romeo-and-Juliet angst as I wanted: honestly, it seemed like pretty smooth sailing for our protagonists, but it made the book no less satisfying.

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KELSEA O'CONNOR

Kelsea O’Connor is contributing editor to Geist. She lives in New Westminster.


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