Ron Does Stuff

Might as well finish it right? I’ve done two of the five volumes, and it’s not like they’re ridiculously thick volumes like a Brandon Sanderson novel or something.

I actually finished reading the second volume on a positive note, having been legitimately moved by Nick Nelson’s coming out as bisexual to his mom. I was looking forward to the next volumes, thinking that maybe I misjudged it on the first “episode”, so to speak.

And…maybe I was right the first time around and the coming out scene was the fluke. Once again, I want to reiterate that the books aren’t bad. For the audience they’re aiming for, I think it’s a good book, a good story to tell, and a good gateway to other works tackling the teen LGBTQIA+ experience. Unfortunately, I am not that audience.

There are moments in the book where I feel like I’m reading a guidance counselor pamphlet about what it is to be bisexual or queer or LGBTQIA+. I got the same feeling when the book introduced the other challenges Charlie is going through and I really wanted to roll my eyes at all of it.

My disconnect with the books is even more aggravated (?) by the fact that I genuinely like the Netflix adaptation — or at least what I’ve seen of it so far. There are certain decisions the adaptation makes that just make sense and it just looks like the adaptation is telling the story Alice Oseman wants to tell better than she does.

But I also fully realize that the adaptation has the luxury of already knowing how the story is going to turn out and can “dev edit” the source material for a betterstory. There’s also the fact that the adaptation has Netflix money behind it while Alice Oseman had to start a Kickstarter just to get the first volume out. It’s a little unfair of me to view her work unfavorably when put beside its adaptation when just getting the books out in the first place must have been a lot of work outside of the writing and illustrating and creating it.

I also had to remind myself that I am old and just because none of what the book is doing is new to me or tackled in an interesting way for me, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a reader out there who’s just encountering all these things for the first time and finds that the book’s approach, like I said, is a good gateway to those things.

If you’re a young queer person thinking about whether Heartstopper is a book you should read, this isn’t the review for you. Look to the opinions of people around your age, who very clearly think this is a good book based on how popular it’s become, despite having no big publisher backing. I am very clearly not the audience for this book and it would be a shame if you let my opinion sway you from reading a book that could be life-changing for you. But if you’re a grumpy old guy like me — or a grumpy young guy! — maybe this review is for you!