Oh, how much I needed this graphic novel at the start of college! I had such a hard time adjusting from a class of about 170 where I knew everyone in my grade and the grades below me to a college of about 14,000 students. Since my school was bigger than just about any around it I wasn't expecting the adjustment to be so hard. I was an only child who had a room to myself and suddenly I was LIVING with someone I didn't even know in what I desperately wanted to be my own space.

Oh, and I was also an AVID fanfiction author.

So, I could definitely relate to Cath.

I believe this is volume one of what will be a four volume series, so there's not a huge amount of plot to absorb yet, but so far Cath has moved into college and is not sharing a room with her twin sister as she had hoped, but an outgoing young woman named Raegan. Raegan and her boyfriend make Cath their charity case and eventually push her out of her comfort zone to do things like eat in the cafeteria and go bowling. They aren't nearly as wild as Wren, Cath's twin sister.

Cath also makes a friend named Nick from her fiction writing class and they end up writing together at the same time every week.

It's cute.

But I'm hoping that somewhere behind this cutesy novel will be an exploration of why straight women write fictional love stories with gay characters and some of the problems that arise from this. I'm not going so far as to say this is a problem but it can be problematic. I'm hoping we will explore why crafting and detailing an epic relationship for Simon and Baz was so important for Cath that it became her entire life. But considering Rowell then turned around and actually wrote said story about Simon and Baz, I'm not holding my breath. I know I could read the novelized version to see if this ever happens and I will.

I'm also hoping to see more exploration around mental health, especially pertaining to Cath and Wren's father and to Cath herself. We'll see!