I don’t know about you, but I love graphic novels. They’re a quick way to read a story with beautiful artwork. The only way I’ve been able to keep up with my reading goals every year was because of graphic novels. That being said, I’d like to think that I’ve read a lot of graphic novels in my time, and I’m excited to finally share my recommendations!
For the most part, I read a lot of middle grade/young adult graphic novels with a sprinkling of books targeted towards adults. They’re mostly in the fantasy or contemporary fiction genre.
If you don’t have enough time to commit to a full novel or just want to spruce up your TBR, this is the right place for you!
These recommendations are in no particular order.
To keep this post as brief as I can possibly make it, I’m going to give super short summaries of every book/series I recommend. If you want the full blurb, the Goodreads page for each book is linked to its respective title.
FANTASY
Lumberjanes
Authors: depends on the volume || Illustrators: depends on the volume
Genre: young adult || Volumes: 16
A group of girl scouts solve fantastical mysterious happening around their summer camp.
—– ❤ —–
The Witch Boy
Author and Illustrator: Molly Ostertag
Genre: middle grade || Books: 3
Boys aren’t supposed to become witches, but Aster wants nothing more but to learn magic among his sisters and cousins.
—– ❤ —–
Ms. Marvel
Author: G. Willow Wilson || Illustrators: depends on the volume
Genre: young adult || Volumes: 10
Badass girl with growth/shrink powers deals with the struggles of being a superhero and a teen.
—– ❤ —–
Saga
Author: Brian K. Vaughan || Illustrators: Fiona Staples
Genre: adult || Books: 9
Two enemy soldiers fighting in a space war fall in love.
—– ❤ —–
Teen Titans
Author: Kami Garcia || Illustrator: Gabriel Picolo
Genre: young adult || Books: 3
Your favorite Teen Titans but before they became the Teen Titans.
—– ❤ —–
Wires and Nerve
Author: Marissa Meyer || Illustrators: Douglas Holgate, Stephen Gilpin
Genre: young adult || Books: 2
Taking place after the events of The Lunar Chronicles, this story follows Iko and her adventures in helping her friends and finding love.
—– ❤ —–
Nimona
Author and Illustrator: Noelle Stevenson
Genre: young adult || Books: 1
Mysterious shapeshifter and villain lord try to expose heroes.
—– ❤ —–
Amulet
Author and Illustrator: Kazu Kibuishi
Genre: middle grade || Books: 9
Two children try to save their mother while navigating a fantastical world.
—– ❤ —–
CONTEMPORARY
Check, Please!
Author and Illustrator: Ngozi Ukazu
Genre: young adult || Books: 2
Gay dude loves baking and hockey.
(please read this series it is seriously amazing it’s so good that I’m not even using punctuation because I’m typing too fast to try and express how much I love this series)
—– ❤ —–
Giant Days
Author: John Allison || Illustrators: depends on volume
Genre: young adult || Volumes: 13
Three very different friends navigate college life.
—– ❤ —–
Pumpkinheads
Author: Rainbow Rowell || Illustrator: Faith Erin Hicks
Genre: young adult || Books: 1
Two friends make their final year at the pumpkin patch a memorable one.
—– ❤ —–
Bloom
Author: Kevin Panetta || Illustrator: Savanna Ganucheau
Genre: young adult || Books: 1
A boy longing for the city life falls in love with the person who is supposed to take his place at his family’s struggling bakery.
—– ❤ —–
In Real Life
Author: Cory Doctorow || Illustrator: Jen Wang
Genre: young adult || Books: 1
A girl learns through a massive RPG how the real world is not as black and white like it is in games.
—– ❤ —–
Berrybrook Middle School
Author and Illustrator: Svetlana Chmakova
Genre: middle grade || Books: 3
A bunch of middle school friends learn valuable lessons in a very wholesome way.
—– ❤ —–
anything by Raina Telgemeier
Author and illustrator: Raina Telgemeier
Genre: middle grade || Books: a lot
I just love how fun Raina Telgemeier’s stories and art style is.
—– ❤ —–
OTHER GENRES
The Prince and the Dressmaker
Authors and Illustrator: Jen Wang
Genre: young adult || Books: 1
A prince by day, a daring lady by night. A dressmaker friend helps his dreams come true, but at what cost?
—– ❤ —–
novel adaptations
Yes, I agree that the graphic novel adaptations are never as good as the original novel itself. However, if you go into the graphic novel acknowledging that, they’re actually not that bad. I usually read them when I either want to revisit a story without rereading the whole book or if I need a quick refresher as to what happened in that book. It comes in handy when you’re about to start a sequel and you’ve forgotten what happened in the first book. Plus, it’s interesting to see other people’s interpretations of the characters and world.
—– ❤ —–
BONUS: COMICS!
Sarah’s Scribbles
Author and Illustrator: Sarah Anderson
Genre: comedy || Books: 4
Hilarious slice-of-life comics following an introvert.
—– ❤ —–
anything by Catana Chetwynd
Author and Illustrator: Catana Chetwynd
Genre: humor, romance || Books: 2
A compilation of cute comics about Catana’s relationship with her boyfriend.
—– ❤ —–
Success is 90% Spite
Author and Illustrator: Jane Zei
Genre: comedy || Books: 1
From the artist and author of web comic The Pigeon Gazette comes a hilarious collection of comics about life.
—– ❤ —–
Hyperbole and a Half
Author and Illustrator: Allie Brosh
Genre: comedy || Books: 1
Hilarious stories of things that happened to Allie Brosh.
—– ❤ —–
What do you think? Did you agree with my selection? Disagree?
Do you have any graphic novel recommendations that I might have missed in this post? Give them some book love and shout them out in the comments! ❤
Until next time….
The Awkward Book Blogger 
I really love the OG Jedi Academy books! They got a new author that I’m iffy about but the first few are great!!
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Great rec! I’ll have to check them out in the future 😀
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I love Teen Titans and I had no idea there was prequel graphic novels. I’m definitely going to be adding those to my collection!
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Yay! I love Picolo (the artist who is illustrating this series) and his artwork style, and I hope you do too! ❤
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I’ve been getting into Alice Newman’s Heartstopper. She updates online three times a month, but the first three volumes are out in a physical format.
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Sorry, Alice Oseman’s.
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Ooh a web comic! I’ll have to check it out sometime! Thanks for the rec! ❤
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I’m wanting to add more graphic novels to my TBR, so this is perfect!! Thank you SO much for the list ❤️✨
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No problem! I’m glad this post helped 😀
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I want to read more graphic novels – I definitely want to check Lumberjanes and Nimona out 🙂
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Those are two of my all-time favorites. I hope you enjoy them if you decide to pick them up! ❤
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Thank you so much for sharing these recommendations! I’ve only recently gotten into graphic novels but Lumberjanes is a firm favourite of mine so I know if I see it on a list of recommendations that there’s a good chance I’ll like the other titles too. 😊
As someone mentioned above, Heartstopper is AMAZING. I also really enjoy The Woods series by James Tynion IV which is darker, more of a YA sci-fi but it has some of the same magical qualities as Lumberjanes.
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Lumberjanes is an all-time favorite! It was the series that got me into graphic novels in the first place! I hope you were able to find some recommendations that peaked your interest!
You’re the second person to recommend Heartstopper! I looked at the blurb on Goodreads, and it’s right up my alley. I mean, it’s got to be good if more than one person recommends it! 😀 I’ll have to read it as soon as I can get my hands on a copy!
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