Unfortunately, Forest Hills Bootleg Society was another miss. However, I have really been struggling to connect with coming-of-age graphic novels for the last few weeks so this may be more a reflection of my headspace at the moment than the quality of this book in particular. This graphic novel follows a group of anime-loving high schoolers in a Christian boarding school. The girls after accidentally acquiring hentai begin selling copies of it to their peers to enormous success.

One of my biggest problems with this book was its style. I felt constantly overwhelmed by superfluous text as I was reading this story. Author Dave Baker often filled the page with quirky character details in text boxes and splash pages. While more justified for our four lead characters this tendency to overexplain with text was used to an aggravating degree. This book gives us the full names and personality details of minor side characters with little to no dialogue or plot relevance to the story. While I can't say this made Forest Hills a complete slog it was often tedious.

Nicole Goux's illustration style was also a little too busy for my taste. Her pages were filled with details I could imagine another reader loving to take in but, like the text, it just overwhelmed me. Despite that her illustration and colouring overall were solid. Her modern style is reminiscent of webcomics and felt appropriate for this coming-of-age narrative.

Thematically I think Forest Hills Bootleg Society could connect with people. Baker and Goux explore being closeted in a small town, religious guilt, first love, and the messiness of female friendships. However, I, unfortunately, didn't quite connect to the story like I hoped I would. Honestly. outside of the art style, I can't exactly pin down what I didn't like about this book. All I can say is halfway through it I paused to ask myself if I truly cared to find out how the story would unfold and the honest answer was no.