I am absolutely in love with Brian K. Vaughan’s Saga series. I genuinely cannot get enough of it, so when I found out that Vaughan had written another graphic novel series about teenagers who deliver newspapers and then get sucked into time travel, I was all here for it. 

In the early hours after Halloween of 1988, four 12-year-old newspaper delivery girls uncover the most important story of all time. Suburban drama and otherworldly mysteries collide in this smash-hit series about nostalgia, first jobs, and the last days of childhood.

Collects Paper Girls #1-5

Boy, was I disappointed… I know that it’s only the first volume, and I know that Vaughan is only setting up the characters and leading us into the whole ‘what’s going to happen’ feeling, but THIS PLOT DID NOT MAKE ANY SENSE. Once I had finished this volume, I DID go straight onto the second volume to see if anything was revealed and to see what happened, but the first volume just really left me confused.

However, the plot was unique, which is what Vaughan is known for. It was weird, fun, the art style was very colourful and definitely reminiscent of the 80s. I know that the graphic novel states that it’s set in the 80s (in the beginning anyway), but I just loved the MAJOR 80s vibes that this gave off, with the clothes, the hairstyles, just everything…

I just wanted to grow up fast so everything would finally be good, you know? But truth is, life was actually way better back then. Turns out, the older you get… the more everything just turns to shit.”

― Brian K. Vaughan, Paper Girls, Vol. 1

I think that the one thing that really let me down about this (other than the confusion) was that so much happened in such a short amount of time. Some more world-building was definitely needed. This is what Vaughan just does SO WELL in his Saga series: the world building. Albeit, the first few volumes of Saga were action-packed, but Vaughan still took the time to build the worlds we were visiting and to make sure that we felt a connection to the characters. I didn’t see (or feel) any of this during Paper Girls. It’s definitely more of a plot-driven story as we aren’t given chance to really get to know the girls, we’re just thrown in the deep end of some time travel plot.

I do just want to point out though, that there are some slurs against LGBTQIA+ individuals and I fully recognise that these words were used to mirror the social context of what it was like to live in the 80s, but I just wanted to point it out in case people are going to be seriously hurt by the words that are used. (And I don’t want people’s feelings to get trampled on!)

Overall, this was an ok start to the series. It was definitely full of action, but it didn’t give us time to connect with the characters (which I’m hoping will come later on in the series) and I do think that it jumped into the time-travel storyline a little bit too quickly. But other people seem to absolutely love this series, so I’m definitely going to carry on reading it, just so I can find out what actually happens so I can have myself some answers.