Title: Check, Please!: #Hockey
Author: Ngozi Ukazu
Type: Fiction, Sequential Art, Graphic Novel
Genre: YA, LGBT, Sports
Publisher: First Second (Macmillan)
Published: September 18, 2018

A physical copy of this book was kindly provided by Raincoast Books, in exchange for an honest review.

Helloooo, Internet Land. Bitty here!

Y’all… I might not be ready for this. I may be a former junior figure skating champion, vlogger extraordinaire, and very talented amateur pâtissier, but being a freshman on the Samwell University hockey team is a whole new challenge. It’s nothing like co-ed club hockey back in Georgia! First of all? There’s checking. And then, there is Jack—our very attractive but moody captain.

A collection of the first half of the megapopular webcomic series of the same name, Check, Please!: #Hockey is the first book of a hilarious and stirring two-volume coming-of-age story about hockey, bros, and trying to find yourself during the best four years of your life.

– My Review –

My first reaction to this graphic novel, before opening it and reading the first page, was that I really liked the premise (Hello! Mega Yuri on Ice fan here … and this book was actually pitched to me from another Yuri on Ice fan … hence the Yuri on Ice POP Funkos! You can read my review for that anime here!) I wasn’t too sure about the art style, though. I tend to be very picky when it comes to art style in graphic novels, and find that my enjoyment of this medium very much depends on how I feel about the art. But, despite my hesitation regarding the particular artistic style displayed on the cover, I found that I really didn’t notice it once I started reading, and that it even grew on me after a few chapters! Now, I can’t picture this story being illustrated in any other way.

This graphic novel was so much fun to read! The very first section starts off with the main character, Bitty, sharing a vlog with his social media followers. Being quite active on social media myself, I already found myself connecting with Bitty from the very first page! When I was introduced to the other characters, I found myself liking a lot of them as well, and found that by the time I got to the last page of this book, I felt sad to be saying goodbye because I almost felt as if I’d experienced three years of university with them alongside Bitty! While I don’t know a lot about hockey, I feel like the author did a lot of research, and a lot of it felt genuine and like something that would happen in real life. There was also a lot of humour in Check, Please!: #Hockey, and I found myself laughing out loud quite a bit. Overall, I absolutely adored this graphic novel and highly recommend it whether you’re a fan of sports or not!

– About the Author –

Ngozi Ukazu is the creator of Check, Please!, an online graphic novel whose printing campaign remains the most funded webcomics Kickstarter ever. She graduated from Yale University in 2013 with a degree in Computing and The Arts, and received a masters in Sequential Art in 2015 from the Savannah College of Art and Design. You can read Check, Please! here on Tumblr.

– Purchase Links –

THANK YOU FOR READING MY BOOK REVIEW! HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK? WHAT DID YOU THINK? AND IF YOU HAVEN’T READ IT YET, DO YOU WANT TO, OR NOT? HOW COME? LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!