Inclusion CBR17 Pie Chart Challenge
Once upon a time, I was on the Evil Empire site and it said that I could “buy” a copy of Love and War by Andrew Wheeler, Killian Ng (illustrator), and the rest of the gang (it takes a wonderful village to make a graphic novel) as an e-book. However, I hope I didn’t use actual money or even real points from my credit card as I don’t buy e-books (long story). Especially since when I was cleaning up that account (that I really shouldn’t have to start with and another long story) it had already been “removed” and fairly quickly at that. But I was okay with that, as I didn’t want to read it now (another long story), but eventually I decided I did want to read it after all, and found it via an interlibrary loan.
I was not really sure what to expect. At first I thought maybe they were acrobats or gymnasts. Perhaps they were a misfit group of somewhat reluctant teenage super spies. I did not expect a realistic fairytale of love, hate and sometimes both. There were a few bumps now and again for me with the flow of things and the theme, but overall it was a fun read. The illustrations are cute and light (you can get an idea of how people look from the cover, but inside it’s much more detailed and colorful). There is an interesting cast of characters that are fairly diverse, do seem to lean towards the LGBTQ community, and sometimes I did not always like them, but they feel slightly exaggerated but realistic.
The characters follow the usual teen angst, plus the idea of team players vs. individual players. And there are love triangles between two sets of couples. The best part of the book is that the HOT sport of the two colleges we follow is tug-of-war. TUG-OF-WAR!!!!!! Not baseball, football, baseball, basketball, rugby or even track. Nope. Tug-of-War. Probably the least thought of when it comes to sports (I’d argue tiddly winks gets more love). The not so great part (for me at least) is that the two colleges are very stereotypical. The coach of the “evil villain rivals” team is a total “bro jock” (hairy chest and all sticking out of his track suit). The teammates are the first to toss out trash talk. And they just look like the villains with their all perfect, hot look whereas our “heroes” are all shapes, sizes and colors. Yet, that does not take away from things. It is just a cute, fun, lighthearted romance (so far, there are more volumes after this one) graphic novel that takes a few hours to read if you take your time, read slow and for the details and enjoy the extras at the end.