Lumberjanes: Volume Two: Friendship to the Max

Lumberjanes: Volume Two: Friendship to the Max
Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Brooke Allen, 2015

Challenge Book! Book Riot Read Harder Challenge 2016 - Read a non-superhero comic that debuted in the last three years

Premise: Follows Beware the Kitten Holy. Collects Lumberjanes #5-8. Counselor Jen and the girls of the Roanoke cabin are still trying to figure out why supernatural things keep happening around them. But Jo is hiding the artifact she found, and another camper is taking an interest in them…

Dinosaurs! Mythical Beings in Disguise! Capture the Flag! It’s all just part of the camp experience.

This volume completes the initial plot arc, and while I can’t say that I expected the directions that the plot went in, I still very much enjoyed it. The writing and art tighten a little for these issues, and the great blend of humor, pathos, and action from the first volume continues. I laughed out loud fairly often.

Really, it’s all about teamwork and friendship. Jo and Alice’s friendship specifically takes center stage, although all the girls have great moments and work together wonderfully.

It’s the details that really highlight how special this book it. Rosie (head of the camp) casually whittling… axe handles...with an axe. A brief shift in art style to heighten the melodrama of planning a daring rescue of capture-the-flag prisoners. The Mal and Molly puppy-love romance continues to run behind the action. Lots of nuanced moments around how Jo responds to a misunderstanding about identity (in about ten issues, it will become explicit that Jo is trans).

I’m still enjoying this world and this group of characters enormously. While I would have been happy with just these two volumes, I’m glad the success of the title means that it is still running. I’ll keep following for more adventures, more comedy, and more friendship to the max!

5 Stars - An Awesome Book