What a sweet little book! The art is fantastic, especially the use of color and expression throughout. It also goes to show that relationships, in all forms, are fickle. Nicely done!

Four friends have stolen aboard the Titanic. They're after the Rubaiyat - a book inlaid with priceless jewels. Josefa is a charismatic thief, Hinnah a daring acrobat, Violet an outstanding actress and Emilie a talented artist.

It is Josefa's plan, but she needs all of their skills. Despite their very different backgrounds, in a world of first-class passengers and suspicious crew members, the girls must work together to pull off the heist of their lives.

The Love report follows two best friends as they conduct their own research to find out more about love. They interview peers in their school, from a popular couple to the school gossip to the “it girl”. Along the way their friendship is tested as they begin to experience problems in their home and romantic lives.

The art in this book is adorable. I love the colorfulness, which makes even the most mundane settings, like a school, seem exciting. My favorite part of the book was the overarching theme of people being complex. No matter what the outside perception of someone is, there is much more to them than meets the eye.

I did struggle with some parts of the story however. There were several typos which brought me out of the story. I also think all the extra characters and their subplots was a bit too much to follow in such a short story. Lastly, I was really hoping this would be a sapphic love story. Maybe that is on me for assuming that based on the cover and summary. But I did still appreciate their strong platonic bond.

Please check content warnings for this book as their are some triggers that don’t usually come up in middle grade novels, which I believe this is the intended age range.

The Love Report was such a cute graphic novel about two grade school best friends who want to know the mystery behind love and why it makes you do such crazy things. I think this is going to be perfect for young girls to learn that you are the most important person in your own life.

Love Yourself!

The middle school years are tough, but Lola and Grace are determined to figure it out—starting with what it means to be in love and how their fellow students interpret love. (Hint: their fellow students haven't figured it out yet either.)

The illustrations here are gorgeous, reminiscent of art by Yaoyao Ma Van As. Page after page of detailed illustration in rich colors—the cover is what drew me to the book, and the illustrations throughout are consistently on point. Many of the struggles Lola and Grace face will also feel viscerally accurate to the age group in question, from first love to family problems to figuring out how to navigate friendship when suddenly other things are taking your attention.

The description indicates that this is the beginning of a series, and I'm curious about where things will go from here. Here we have the first two volumes of the story (the first, in which the girls collect their theoretical data; the second, in which things start to fall apart). I was very glad to see friendship—both old friendship and burgeoning friendship—as a strong theme, though I wish we were beyond the point of girls slut-shaming others (in this case because of looks/clothing, though...I'd like to see both books and real life move beyond slut-shaming altogether). I'd also really like to see future volumes go beyond romance and get a higher grade on the Bechdel test, because the moments of friendship are the ones that kept me invested in the story.

And a possible spoiler (avert your eyes if you don't want to know!): The cover and description had me convinced that we were in for a romance between our two heroines—but alas, it was not to be. Attention is paid to inclusion (main and background characters of various races, a girl in the background in a hijab, Lola and Grace mentioning, in passing and entirely neutrally, the possibility of other characters being in same-sex relationships), but these volumes at least remain focused on boys liking girls and girls liking boys.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a free review copy through NetGalley.

This was a cute story and I could definitely see it becoming popular as a graphic novel. I would recommend it to my young readers at the library.

This was a very cute graphic novel talking about the places that we look for and find love. I believe the book was translated from another language and the translations didn't always make sense but I would urge folks to take that in stride. I find it interesting that all of the characters searching for love in the book are young girls and a lot of pressure and blame is put on young boys. I think it would've been more interesting to have multiple genders represented in looking for love. All in all, a very cute book that shows all of the areas of one's life they can find love and support.

I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
"Love is in the air!" at this junior high, and best friends, Lola and Grace, want to know all about it. They create the Love Report, a journal analyzing and writing down all the love information at their school. From the mysterious popular girl who always hides away at lunch to the goth girl Adele, who's hiding some personal secrets of her own. Boys confuse them, and so does love, but with the help of the social gossiper at school, Lola and Grace can interpret the ups and downs of falling in love.
The Love Report is absolutely adorable. Sure, some topics were hard to connect with, but the art style really grasped me. I felt for Lola and Grace, from parents fighting all the time to crushing on the cute boy at school. With a pastel color scheme and beautifully drawn artwork, I liked how it was all set up. It's a time of growing up and having your first kiss, but all in all, connecting back with your best friend(s). Is there going to be a sequel?

I was not a fan of how the book went about some of the topics I felt it was unfair to compare abuse to love

This was a really good book about exploring the concept of romance and love for tweens. I like how the book covered the highs and lows of romance, from divorce to consent to first dates.

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

"The Love Report" follows two girls navigating middle school relationships by recording information about love in a notebook called (you guessed it!) The Love Report. Our protagonists are Lola, a nerdy kid crushing on a boy for the first time, and Grace, who's slightly more popular and relationship-savvy. They're BFF's, and their relationship is DELIGHTFUL to follow! It feels sweet and genuine, but the author also allows room for moments of fighting and tension - just like in any friendship.

There were so many things I enjoyed about this book. The art is beautiful and the story is well-written, perfectly suited for a middle grade audience. I feel like sometimes middle grade authors try to talk down to their readers, and this book gracefully avoids that issue. It handles topics like divorce and consent without being too graphic, but also without ignoring the gravity of either discussion. The author writes these plotlines into the novel understanding that these are real issues middle schoolers are starting to become more aware of at this point in their lives.

Additionally, the plot itself feel pretty genuine and realistic in all respects. I know I would've really liked this book in sixth-through-eighth-grade. The only moments that felt a little weird were the standard moments of "adult author trying so hard to write teen dialogue and getting it wrong in a way where it's close but just off enough to feel strange" which mostly occurred with slang used in brief snippets of dialogue and some outdated texting abbreviations that I just KNOW would make my 14-year-old sister cringe. Other than that, I enjoyed it - the plot's a little cheesy at times, but that's to be expected from a middle grade book titled "The Love Report." The characters and conflicts are generally well-written and well fleshed-out, and I was impressed by how each of the side characters seemed like a real person - normally I've found that middle grade books (particularly graphic novels) will work to develop the main characters and maybe the antagonist a bit, but they tend to leave secondary characters behind. It was refreshing to read a middle grade book where the secondary characters all feel pretty reasonably like real people, with real lives and real personalities. This reinforces the book's central message that everything (including love) is more complicated than it seems, so that works nicely, too.

Some plot threads were predictable to me as an 18-year-old, but I'm sure that the plot twists could still work for some of the book's target audience, depending on their familiarity with plot structure. There were also some minor typos (most notably on page 109, page 138, and page 142), but these are pretty common in ARCs - I'm sure they'll be fixed by the time the book hits shelves, and I'm only mentioning them in this review to give the editor a heads-up in the off chance they read this. There were also some characters whose motives felt a little strange (the "cool older goth girl" character would sometimes lash out at the younger protagonists and I didn't always understand where she was coming from about that?) but it seems like this is going to be developed into a series, and if so, I could see those issues being resolved in a later book.

I'm definitely going to recommend this to some middle school librarians I know. This is a great book for anyone who wants a middle grade novel about navigating complex relationships (of all types - platonic, romantic, familial, and so on) as well as anyone who wants to read a book with a strong cast of female characters. I feel like this would be good for fans of Raina Telgemeier's "Drama" or Svetlana Chmakova's Berrybrook Middle School series.

A cute middle-grade graphic novel about two young girls who are trying to investigate the definition of love. The art style is super cute and reminiscent of anime and the messages about the importance of friendship, communication and honesty are extremely important for a young audience! Unfortunately, I think this book suffered from trying to tackle too many topics (divorce, sexual assault, heartbreak, fetishization) in so short a story. I also wasn't a fan of the constant slut-shaming that occurs on the part of the MCs (granted, they're kids, but that shit needs addressing!)

Thanks to NetGalley, I got to read this graphic novel before its release. I thought the story was pretty relatable because everyone is either growing up or has grown up and questions what love is and what relationships and heartbreak are like. I didn't realize until reading it that it was originally in another language. There were definitely some spelling mistakes or misses in the translation, but overall I think it was an easy read and a cute story. I also loved the art style and the way the characters were drawn.

2.5 Really wanted to love this one especially because of the age group that's being targeted and was into for the first half, but then my feelings quickly went down hill.

The artwork was absolutely wonderful (5/5!!!), and the original concept was cute. Unfortunately, I felt that the execution of the overall story was very disappointing.

One of the biggest issues I had was the type of language that was being thrown around because it was very body/sex shaming and name calling/bullying. There isn't a great resolution in multiple instances despite there being an opportunity to really have teachable moments about why we shouldn't use language like that.

There were quite a few heavy topics discussed and I personally would want to be having additional conversations with my young reader outside of this book because there isn't a lot of nuance here and while I understand this is targeting a younger audience and is also a graphic novel so there is a desire for it to be shorter, I still think there could have been a more in depth discussion and learning that could have occurred.

***Thank you to Astra Publishing House and Hippo Park for providing me with the eBook for free via NetGalley for an unbiased review.

I usually love cutesy, fluffy MG graphic novels like this one appears to be, so I had high hopes for a cute little best-friend duo finding their way through junior high relationships, but The Love Report felt like a huge case of "good intentions, bad execution".

The art is cute and Lola's a pretty lovable main character, but every other character is either awful or totally flat, and the dialogue is incredibly off-putting at times. For such a young audience, there's a lot of slut-shaming (including Grace, the protagonist's best friend, frequently calling a character a "bimbo" as an insult) and there is some general treatment of other kids that should have been addressed better.

The book tries to do too much, juggling commentary on divorce, preteen relationships, sexual assault, parental abuse, absent parents, and more, all in such a short span of pages that very little of it is actually fleshed out. I don't recommend this graphic novel and certainly won't be continuing the series.

Thank you to the publisher for the review copy! All thoughts are honest and my own.

✨ Representation: Grace and her family are Black; a side character named Charlie is Asian; a side character named Adele has rainbow pride flag apparel/accessories but is not established as queer on-page

"The Love Report" was adorable! I loved Grace and Lola's friendship and their relationship with the other girls in their school. It was a light and cute read, and I really enjoyed it. I can't wait for the next volumes!

Observe, study, and analyze; the mystery of love.

Grace and Lola wants to find out the mystery that is love, and starts to interview different people at their school. But their personal life gets messy, and what happens when they both hide secrets from each other?

A relatable graphic novel about young love and messy home life. I felt for both Grace and Lola’s situations, and to not spoil anything, I’m really happy about the way it was resolved. It was heart breaking to read about what they were going through, coming from a place where I can understand both their pain—and it felt so real as well—it felt like I was put back in my own situation(s) and even though it’s been a while, the pain is still there. As young as they are, the experience will permanently be there.

The thing that I didn’t like was how many grammar mistakes there was. I am Norwegian, so English is not my first language, but there were obvious mistakes which were annoying reading. But overall, it didn’t affect my experience that much. I also really liked the art style, and want to read more from the author and the illustrator!

I’d recommend this to young readers from middle grade and up, and readers who likes to read graphic novels/comic books.

Happy reading!♥️

I got this book for free from netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with the opportunity to read and review.

While I loved the artwork and felt connected to the characters. I feel like the ending fell flat and was a bit rushed. The story was very sweet and would fit well with a middle grade audience. I would be interested to see where the rest of the series goes if it is turned into one.

I wanted to like this book. The concept was cool, and the art style was adorable. The story itself lost me quickly though.
I'm not sure what the intended audience was. The characters seemed too immature, with the story written too straight-forward, to match some of the other content present. Those contrasting moods led to the tale having an odd energy, especially since the story only skimmed the surface of many of the more serious topics
The book also gave off a very negative view of romantic relationships.

*Minor spoilers*:

There's no healthy romantic relationship shown in the whole story. There's no good man or boy shown. The male characters shown are neglectful, cruel, selfish, etc. Even the parents of the three girls who we see most fall into these categories of unideal men/bad relationships. As for the girls... We have a side character who has decided that she needs to avoid guys in order to focus on her interest in science, and another character who says that her way of doing things is to just date multiple guys at once (to the amusement of her friends). A variety of the other girls shown are depicted as being obsessed with guys or the idea of love, regardless of how little they know their supposed object of affection. "Love" is a word that is treated rather flippantly throughout this book. The ending tried to tie things together and give a "love is painful but we should love anyways" without showing any positives to romantic love throughout the book. It was an odd choice.
The good thing I can say is that the art style was beautiful. Overall though... I didn't enjoy this one.

An excellent addition to the gallery of tween/teen domestic titles like Raina Telgemeier's Drama, Svetlana Chmakova's Berrybrook Middle School series (Awkward, Brave, Crush, Enemies), and the romance oriented Baby Sitter's Club graphic novel adaptations (Logan Likes Mary Anne!, Boy-Crazy Stacy, et al).

Lola and Grace are curious about love, so they decide to investigate the student romances at their school and write their findings down in their 'Love Report'. Along the way, Lola goes through the experiences of a romantic relationship with classmate Noah, from crush to boyfriend to breakup. This is a sweet, low stakes read that nevertheless deals with issues of tween/teen romance, heartbreak, slut-shaming, objectification, in-group exclusions and bullying. The age of the characters/grade level does not appear to be explicitly stated, but it has a Middle School-ish feel, or early High School.

This is a title by French writing duo BeKa and Italian artist Maya, so there may be a few places where there are minor cultural differences from the American/Canadian books listed above. The first half was published in 2021 by Belgian publisher Dupris.

Maya, a former student of the European Manga Academy, illustrates in a clean manga-style that cleanly merges European comics emotional modeling and facial expression with Japanese manga style linework, lay-out, and color. The use of close-ups mid sequence for emotional impact, particularly for showing subtle emotional shifts is especially strong.

This is definitely going on my list for tween graphic novel readers' advisory for tweens looking for read-a-likes for the titles above.