Twelfth Grade Night-Arden High, Book 1 Paperback – October 11, 2022

I really loved this graphic novel and how it mashed Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night's Dream together into this queer high school shenanigans wild time.I really appreciated Vi as a character. She is trying to figure out what its like to go from being with her twin brother every minute to being by herself in a new school and all that comes with that. She makes friends, experiences classic high school crush drama, and ultimately finds out who she is as a separate person from her twin.The queerness in this graphic novel was beautiful to see; I'm always excited to queer kids navigating romance in a positive way. I loved that Olivia liked girls; she's always been sapphic to me in the original play too. And the entire friend group just being out and proud was lovely to see.I really hope there's more after this first one. I wanna see all the antics these characters can get to especially since there's the whole fairy realm to tackle next maybe!

The pacing was weird. It felt too short. The characters were fleshed out but I feel like I barely got to know any of them with so much going on. But it was still a very cute story and the art was very pretty

Talk about an excellent surprise! What a great story that combines many fantastic elements. A truly fun read, don’t want give away spoilers.

My daughter loves the book 10/10. My other daughter did not like the end of the book.

High school can be tough enough, but Vi, separated from her twin Sebastian for the first time is having an especially rough go of it. She's transferred to a new school and while she's glad she can dress however she wants, the school operates just a bit differently than she's used to what with the fairies and all. However, the most difficult is proving to be the web of crushes everyone has, most centering on the beguiling Olivia who actually has a crush on Vi. The only problem is, Vi has a crush on Orsino who has asked Vi to help woo Olivia. All of these emotions, magic, and misdirects culminate in a romantically dramatic school dance.Twelfth Grade Night is packed with heart, delight, and joy, making it a fantastic adaption of the Shakespeare classic.

The publishers info says this is Arden High, Book 1, so you know they want to do a whole series of Shakespeare cartoons, which is probably why they put Titania and Oberon and Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream in a modern 12th Night adaptation.It does not work.Twelfth Night is, and specifically, one of Shakespeare's NON MAGICAL plays. It makes no sense to have fairies flitting around the 12th Night plot, and they are intrusive in what seems otherwise a normal high school.Too bad, because so much of this was done really well. Shakespeare has always been genderbending and queer friendly, and this joyous story of questioning and happily out teens is heartwarming.The art is beautiful, and adapting social media to the messages sent by servants back in the day works very well. The modernizing of Shakespeare's names, e.g. Melvin for Malvolio, is done smoothly.However, I have familiarity with most of the Bard's work, and have performed in both 12th Night and Midsummer multiple times, and would not have been able to follow the plot of this book had I not had knowledge of the stories they were trying to retell.Would have been much better if they had just retold 12th Night, without the intrusive other plays. Not only do they endeavor to weave in Midsummer, they begin with a quote from As You Like It, which is set in the Forest of Arden (Arden High).I very much wish they would start this project over, and just done one play per book.

A review by my 13 year old daughter in 8th grade:This book is a very good book for young audiences, it shows a love triangle and how feelings can be tricky, I really enjoyed this as apart of the young audience and I hope that many other people in the young audience community can share the same feeling about this book.A review from mom:My 13 year old daughter enjoys graphic novels far more than chapter books and she devoured this one in one night! The art is so beautiful and the story was very engaging. Thank you for getting her hooked! Can’t wait for more!

I'm on a reading binge right now, and this was the perfect palette cleanser between longer books. This graphic novel explores gender and sexuality in ahigh school way while throwing in Shakespeare. Totally cute!I received an ARC copy of this book through my local bookseller's program. I have left an honest review.