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kareilaJF here means "juvenile fiction" to distinguish from the original series of graphic novels. These aren't comics; they're illustrated books that feel like they are targeting the 8-12 age range.
I would not have wanted to start here with Lumberjanes. Although the occasional illustrations help to recapture the charm of the graphic novels, they don't sufficiently establish the setting and the characters on their own. And there are enough references to the encounters and events of the graphic novels that I would feel a bit lost without knowing about the girls' previous adventures. (Or some of them, anyway; I've only read the first half of the graphic novel series at this point.)
That said, a novel has the advantage of letting the reader peek inside the character's heads a little bit. I felt like this really improved my understanding of April, who until now has seemed to me to be more one dimensional than most of the other girls. (The exception being Ripley, who is still more like a Pokemon than a person.) And the story took the time to establish each girl's specific interests in the midst of all the adventuring, which I appreciated.
I would not have wanted to start here with Lumberjanes. Although the occasional illustrations help to recapture the charm of the graphic novels, they don't sufficiently establish the setting and the characters on their own. And there are enough references to the encounters and events of the graphic novels that I would feel a bit lost without knowing about the girls' previous adventures. (Or some of them, anyway; I've only read the first half of the graphic novel series at this point.)
That said, a novel has the advantage of letting the reader peek inside the character's heads a little bit. I felt like this really improved my understanding of April, who until now has seemed to me to be more one dimensional than most of the other girls. (The exception being Ripley, who is still more like a Pokemon than a person.) And the story took the time to establish each girl's specific interests in the midst of all the adventuring, which I appreciated.
