User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
(A-) 82% | Very Good
Notes: Experimental storytelling, altered bookend paralleling, no twists, low-key, still, poignancy's a force in its farewelling.
Rating: really liked it
“So, who are you?”—Boy having his arm pinned by his back by Erin Tieng, in 1958 Cleveland, having traveled back there from someplace else, 1988.
“Still figuring that out”—KJ
“The amount of time we’re given is irrelevant”—Erin
“We’re not only paper girls, we’re. . ."
I was very moved by this concluding volume and a bit of a mess, truthfully, but I know that I would definitely have been reading the comics series Papergirls at sixteen if it had been available and feeling much the same. Okay, my 16 year old self would not have had available a comics series highlighting joyfully the whole girl on girl kissing thing, because that was not a widespread literary phenomena in the sixties, but that was my loss, and the loss of all glbtq readers at that time. Even in the eighties, which this series focuses on, was not a queer-comics-centric time, of course. You'd need some weird time travel device to help you understand the extent and depth of homophobia and silence in the last several centuries, I guess.
My wife’s uncle that I loved very much died last night and that is part of my emotional landscape as I finish this powerful and sweet and sad series this morning. You read when you read and that "when" affects your memory of the book possibly permanently. But oh, Brian Vaughn (and the amazingly inventive Cliff Chiang and the amazing colorist Matt Wilson), you get me. Maybe you just get humans.
“What does it matter? Life existed on this rock for less than a blink of the universe’s eye, and somehow, against astronomical odds, you and I got to be part of it!”
“Man, for a terminal cancer patient, you’re like a living Bobby McFerrin song.”
That! I mean both of those sentences, from both perspectives, the sentimental and the smart-ass! Augh! This guy (Vaughn)!
And maybe all time travel films and books are always about nostalgia and the sweet sad passing of time. Probably. Because this last volume is all about love and friendship but also about the passing of time and that sweet sadness.
Paper Girls, Volume 6, yes, completes the instant classic YA sci-fi time travel series. It features a cover with the four paper girls, and one of them an older self, tougher, more determined, facing real challenges, not just Halloween spooks. Like the possible loss of friendship and memory and the inevitability of death. The next image is of a smashed pumpkin (oh, good, just in time for Halloween! This is where the first volume began, and it is a time travel series, so here it must end). The next image is a two-page spread of one of the girls holding a knife, the windows in the houses behind her bearing Halloween decorations. When she is transported through time to her street (before holding said knife), she is truly frightened by a Donald Trump mask (heh).
I won’t tell you what happens, it would be too complicated to do that, but we begin the volume in multiple years that involve multiplying nostalgia effects via year-appropriate references (or, call it product placement, as the Stranger Things production crew knows has to happen in an eighties tribute, which this also very much is). And we know from the last volume that all the girls are in different times and places, so we at one point for several pages read about them through a series of four-panel pages where we see each of them in same time experiences.
So I loved loved loved the finish, sort of because of and in spite of all the geeky reflection about how to deal with the fact of time travel and memory. But here’s some random stuff I also dug:
One of them says that time is degradable, like a cassette tape. Ha!
I like all the references to: Moonwalking, Walkmans, walkie talkies. Yellow punch buggy (where you punch someone when you see a yellow Volkswagon, though we called it slug bug and it was for any color)
Charlotte, to Jude: “Hey, Jude.”
“Our dreams are secret messages from our future.” (oh, just go with it. . .)
“Tiffany! You’re not dead yet!”
One of them talks about daylight savings time as time suspension/travel: "You get to relive sixty minutes every year!"
Mac, sitting on a rock far into the future, with the woman who invented time travel, as they both realize how it is they both may die, with the only thing that really matters to her at the moment: “I kissed a girl.” Because yeah, you are going to die, but at least you have this, and isn't that so true?!
The ultimate goal of the girls, ala every eighties kid film: Peace on Earth, natch. We'll see how that works out.
Also it's obviously about friendship, and friendship across differences since all the girls are unlike each other, and since it’s a YA texts set in the eighties:
“It’s like Mr. T says, ‘You gotta follow your dream.’”
Must read series. One of the best YA series ever. Ever! Me, oh, I'll be all right, thanks, as long as I have books to comfort me. And am now watching the much-anticipated Amazon Prime series, and like it, though it will never be this comics series.
Rating: really liked it
That ending was bittersweet 💕
Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾
Rating: really liked it
A bittersweet ending to a wonderfully beautiful, weird and confusing series
Rating: really liked it
A somewhat bittersweet ending to a wonderful series. As the book draws to a close, it's clear this series was as much about burgeoning friendships as it was about time travel. It reminds me how easy it is to make close friends at that age in a matter of days and how it becomes so difficult as you become an adult.
Oh, don't worry, Vaughan still sticks the landing when it comes to time travel and all of the swirling plot lines. They all come together quite nicely. I do think this is a series that benefits from bingeing. There is a lot to keep track of a quick run through makes that much easier to juggle in your head.
The art, by Cliff Chiang and Matthew Wilson, is just terrific. It's full of panel structures that sell the story and vibrant pastel colors that sing off the page. Other artists should take note.
A great ending to a great series.
Rating: really liked it
Right in the feels. I may have even cried a little at the end.
Truth be told, I came into this with still a lot of questions.
No, I didn’t get all the answers. And considering this is the last volume of this series, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to go into much detail for this review. Pretty much everything I could say about the plot at this point would be a spoiler. And you don’t want to hear that.
What I can say is that I was torn about the way Vaughan un-spaghettied that tangled time-web he had woven over the course of the previous volumes. It made all the plot stuff seem less significant. But it also made for a very emotional ending. Ultimately this whole series was probably less about the intricacies of time travel, and more about friendship.
'I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, did you?'
- Stephen King “The Body”
I almost gave this 5 stars. The very last issue was amazing to read. It had some of the coolest panels of the whole series. My favorite I have to spoiler tag, unfortunately. Even though it isn’t really a spoiler, it might confuse those who have already started to read the series. Just come back here when you’ve finished and tell me if you loved that one as much as I did. :)
(view spoiler)
[ 
(hide spoiler)]That was one of several
Ha! moments in this one. There was also a not very subtle nod to my favorite movie ever. Loved that! And if you remember my review of the first volume, the guys I made up for that one actually showed up here. Ha! Okay, kind of showed up here. But still. Ha!
Overall this series had exactly the right mix of humour, sadness, fun, nostalgia, angst, action, craziness, and profoundness to make it a real hit for me. I will miss these girls.
But honestly? I might just read it for a third time. Ha!
Hugo 2020 nominee for best Graphic Story.
____________________________
2020 Hugo Award Finalists
Best Novel• The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
• Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
• The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
•
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine• Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
• The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
Best Novella• Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom by Ted Chiang ( Exhalation)
• The Deep by Rivers Solomon, with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson & Jonathan Snipes
• The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark
• In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire
•
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone• To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
Best Novelette• The Archronology of Love by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed Magazine, April 2019)
• Away With the Wolves by Sarah Gailey ( Uncanny Magazine Issue 30: Disabled People Destroy Fanatsy! Special Issue)
• The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye by Sarah Pinsker ( Uncanny Magazine Issue 29: July/August 2019)
•
Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin• For He Can Creep by Siobhan Carroll
• Omphalos by Ted Chiang
Best Short Story• And Now His Lordship Is Laughing by Shiv Ramdas (Strange Horizons 9 September 2019)
•
As the Last I May Know by S.L. Huang• Blood Is Another Word for Hunger by Rivers Solomon
• A Catalog of Storms by Fran Wilde (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 26, January-February 2019)
• Do Not Look Back, My Lion by Alix E. Harrow (Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #270)
• Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island by Nibedita Sen (Nightmare Magazine, Issue 80)
Best Series•
The Expanse by James S. A. Corey• InCryptid by Seanan McGuire
• Luna by Ian McDonald
• Planetfall series by Emma Newman
• Winternight Trilogy by Katherine Arden
• The Wormwood Trilogy by Tade Thompson
Best Related Work• Becoming Superman: My Journey from Poverty to Hollywood by J. Michael Straczynski
• Joanna Russ by Gwyneth Jones
• The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick by Mallory O’Meara
• The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein by Farah Mendlesohn
•
2019 John W. Campbell Award Acceptance Speech by Jeannette Ng• Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, produced and directed by Arwen Curry
Best Graphic Story or Comic• Die, Volume 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans, letters by Clayton Cowles
•
LaGuardia, written by Nnedi Okorafor, art by Tana Ford, colours by James Devlin• Monstress, Volume 4: The Chosen, written by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda
• Mooncakes by Wendy Xu and Suzanne Walker, letters by Joamette Gil
• Paper Girls, Volume 6, written by Brian K. Vaughan, drawn by Cliff Chiang, colours by Matt Wilson, letters by Jared K. Fletcher
• The Wicked + The Divine, Volume 9: "Okay" by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, colours by Matt Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles
Rating: really liked it
[
He "It was all a dream!"d us! And tried to make US feel better about it by saying "well not really a dream, it really happened, just in a timeline that no longer exists and in the minds of folks who don't recall it." And on top of all that, he threw away so many cool reveals, AND re
Rating: really liked it
A fine ending -- if a bit of a whimper -- to a pretty darn good series. I think it will definitely reward a re-reading.
In thinking about Vaughan's many series, I wonder if he has ever truly stuck the ending. Offhand, I can't really recall how any of his books ended. It seems they are most memorable and thrive in the middle, where his characters are established and they interact in interesting ways.
Rating: really liked it
i'm so sad to see this series end!!
it's rough to have the girls split up into four different timelines for much of the volume, it's handled brilliantly. beautiful formatting shows their concurrent adventures. it's a little hard to read, but i still enjoyed the creativity involved.
thoughts:
‣ KJ acknowledges that she's still figuring out who she is... but damn, it's clear she's a badass.
‣ much of mac's development has been about her confronting her own mortality. very moving to see her facing death in a different way, by bearing witness to the slow passing of a fellow time traveler with the same illness.
‣ mixed feelings about KJ and mac's relationship. they are adorable bby gays, but (view spoiler)
[it sucks that in the end there's no indication that they'll be together or be able to come out anytime soon. (hide spoiler)]‣ also kind of yikes: the meant-to-be-empowering line about how the bible was written BY MEN. uhh, so was this comic.
‣ elderly tiffany affectionately calling young tiffany "sweetheart" and "beautiful" is absolutely heartwarming.
‣ at the end of their time travel adventures, the focus is that the paper girls not have their memories wiped. they want to retain the bond they've formed. is saving their friendship the most important struggle of the story? because that's painful, but lovely.
(view spoiler)
[in the end, seeing them be normal paper girls is bittersweet. they are regular kids. riding bikes and hanging out on playgrounds is what they're supposed to do. but there's the lingering question: was their entire adventure for naught? are their bonds wholly severed? i like to think that giving their friendship a chance to grow is an action that has the potential to change their futures. (hide spoiler)]
Rating: really liked it
The final volume of the incorrigible Paper Girls. Brian K Vaughan whilst writing the supreme series that starts with Saga, Vol. 1 manages to create, write and finish Paper Girls, a 30 part speculative-fiction time travelling drama starring four Paper Girls that at no point have discussions about boys! Yassss BKV!
The final volume really plays with your mind and you have to focus and concentrate to get the story and the genius of it; which I didn't really get, having quite a few months gap between the penultimate volume and this one. This is one of those books (possible like Y: The Last Man, Vol. 1: Unmanned and Saga that needs to be devoured over a shortish period of time to take in all the sub-plotting and multi-layered ensemble cast.
The last issue is a little understated masterpiece, much in the vein of The Sopranos, leaving the reader to decide what actually happened; accompanied with the great art it is a pretty slick finish. 8 out of 12. And now this GIFt to you Paper Girls reader :)
Rating: really liked it
Time travel is not my favorite, and it confuses the bejesus out of me, but I like this band of badass young 1980s papergirls and their many iterations. This collected volume is the conclusion of the “The Battle of the Ages” (it’s a time travelers’ war, y’all). I’m still slightly unsure what transpired, but it’s clearly unique a story of friendship. Above all, I freaking love the artwork and coloring. It’s goddamned beautiful.
Rating: really liked it
And this completes the series for which Vaughan supposedly paused
Saga. Can't say it was worth it. Sorry, not sorry.
The girls finally travel to the end of the line and the start of it. The few important hints we got amongst all the other babbling come together and there is a resolution ... kinda.
If you think about it, it's bloody stupid. I mean, sure, people make stupid choices and then either refuse to or can#t back down, but THIS was the solution to EVERYTHING???
Also, can't say I appreciated the ad for cancer sticks (cigarettes).
Most disappointing, though, was the way this story just ... peetered out. Sadly, that kinda sums up the whole damn thing.
I've read a number of time travel stories and really like the exploration of time (travel), but this was really one of the less good ones (not least because of what was shown in part but never really explained, kinda like a cop-out). :/
Therefore, I've decided I probably won't watch the show that prompted me to read this series after all.
Rating: really liked it
A great finish to a great series. The wrap up was nicely done. I’m a little sad that it’s over.
Rating: really liked it
Beautiful artwork and a fun plot but honestly the conclusion felt very underwhelming after such a strong build up.
To be fair, I spent most of the series confused and maybe reading the whole thing over before finishing it could have clarified some things for me, but I honestly don't think it would have done much. Might revisit this later, but honestly I was kinda let down.
Rating: really liked it
4.4 stars - ended kind of hurried. And sad. [Prtf]
