Nic Lake

An absolutely fantastic book. Massive in scale. Utterly unique in scope. Builds like an avalanche, taking a predictable but not obvious path that leaves you wanting to not put it down. Absolutely hysterical moments throughout, yet it never detracts or derails you from the story. Just shoved its way into my favorite books of all time, and I can't wait to re-read it (as well as finish the series).

Really great story, but Jordan is extremely detailed; such detail turns the reading into a slog/chore.

5 STARS

If you are early on in the book, and seeing this review because you're confused or lost - keep going. I promise you. The first 2/3rds of the novel are, for lack of a better term, gaslighting you, the reader. I've never encountered this before in written form, and it's a tremendous effort from Tamsyn Muir to keep everything on the tracks. What initially had me going “what?” and considering DNFing the book led to one of the best “oh **” moments I've ever had from a novel, and catapulted it up my rankings. Can't wait for the next entry in the series.

2 STARS

I came to The Umbrella Academy after watching the Netflix adaptation. While I thought the show was somewhat disjointed, I ended up enjoying it immensely, and figured I'd give the source material a spin. This is one of those rare instances where the adaptation is better than the original; while it was nice revisiting the setting and the characters, I found myself lost and confused, having to read sections repeatedly in order to make sense of them. I really wanted to like the series more (and thought that Vol 2 was a marked improvement), but I'd honestly recommend the show over the graphic novel to people.

Chapter 18, “My Aim Is True”, has been my favorite 20 pages from a book for over 7 years now. Was great to revisit this one again.