NetGalley ARC Educator 550974

Why limit yourself? This is Haley's story, a girl obsessed with gothic romance novels of a forgotten era. Tasked with redoing a school assignment, she is thrown in a time warp. Will she change her story as well as those of the other characters? Read it and find out.

Amazing art and story. Can't wait for the next installment.

Thank you NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing for an ARC of this book.

Pros:
-Cute artwork
-Lovable characters
-Interesting story

Cons:
-Do Gothic Romances appeal to the target audience?

Haley is a high school student obsessed with Gothic Romances. While brooding on a bridge, she finds someone drowning and goes to their rescue. But instead of saving the drowning man, she is transported into a Gothic Romance wonderland. Adventure and hilarity ensue.

I found this really cute! I loved the characters and all the references to gothic romance books. But I've actually read quite a bit of those books. I'm not sure how many middle-grade/young-adult kids are out there who are familiar enough with Gothic Romance to get the jokes.

A laugh-out-loud adventure, perfect for both those familiar and new to classic gothic tropes. Willowweep Manor is full of characters who stand out by how they play off of each other and their assigned roles in the story. This is a book that at often times is rather meta in how it addresses stories and characters and how they work. It also nails the feeling of having one's own niche interests suddenly become useful and "plot-relevant." To anyone who has ever become completely obsessed with something, only to then have a hard time expanding their interests beyond it, this book will make you feel seen. In the most unexpected and hilarious way possible.

This is an incredibly fun graphic novel that blends gothic/early-19th-century romantic tropes and references with a contemporary satirical take on the multiverse and pocket dimensions. The main character was really fun (and I loved the attention to detail of her waking up in the new dimension with a matching satin sleep bonnet to go with her nightgown), and I appreciated her arc over the course of the story too. This seems like it would probably be fun for a nerdy subset of teens as well, so it would work for multiple audiences. (The reveals throughout were really enjoyable and engaging too--it kept me interested throughout and made it easy to read really quickly.)

Haley is obsessed with Gothic romances and is accidentally transported to a world strikingly like her favorite novels. She meets three brothers, a lovelorn housekeeper, a ghost, and a hermitess, and discovers the world of Willowweep Manor is a gasket universe preventing our universe from being invaded by “a force of penultimate evil” (aka The Bile). This book was weird and funny and delightful.

I don’t know if most of the YA audience will have read enough Jane Eyre/Wuthering Heights/etc-style books to fully appreciate all of the jokes, but even without a large knowledge base of gothic novel tropes, there is still plenty to enjoy and laugh about in this charming graphic novel.

Great for middle school/13+

(Review will be posted on IG @leavemetomybooks closer to publication day & the link will be added)

Very funny and entertaining original graphic novel that blends science fiction with gothic romance and laugh out loud humor. Haley is a gothic romance-obsessed teenager who accidentally falls into a pocket universe that runs on tropes from Haley's favorite genre. When that universe is invaded by malevolent slime that intends to first destroy the pocket universe before moving onto Haley's/our universe, Haley must convince the pocket universe's caretakers to defy their tropes and rewrite their own stories.