About.com Rating



I expected a quick, light read from this thin graphic novel, but was surprised to discover a much deeper, very engaging tale. And though the book is on the slender side, it must be due to the paper stock, because there is a full-length 124-page story in there.

Publication Information

• Full Title:I Love Him to Pieces
• Series: My Boyfriend is a Monster (#1)
• Author: Evonne Tsang
• Artist: Janina Görrissen

• Publisher: Graphic Universe
• Publication Date: 2011
• ISBN: 978-0-7613-7079-6 (paperback), 978-0-7613-6004-9 (library binding), 978-0-7613-7185-4 (e-book)

Zombies, Again

I think one reason I wasn't expecting the story to be as rich as it was was the subject matter: romance and zombies. Of course, done right, zombie stories can be very cool, but they have been done an awful lot recently.

There isn't anything especially new about these zombies, except that zombieism is caused by a variety of Cordyceps fungus -- the same genus that turns insects and arachnids into mindless fungal spore factories (and also the same one that is important in herbal medicine). Even though the science isn't explored a whole lot in this book, it was a nice nod to something that's been in the science news quite a bit recently.

Depth of Character

So the zombies, as fun as they are, aren't what really made this book stand out. There aren't even any zombies at all (except for a subtle mention of Cordyceps) until page 54, and that's only a quick "meanwhile" scene that happens to a background character.

Instead of throwing the characters right into danger, the writer chose to show us who they are first, with a seemingly unrelated story in which popular baseball-jock-girl Dicey Bell gets paired up with super-smart science geek Jack Chen for their health class project, in which they have to pretend to be parents to an egg. That's not, in itself, an original set up for getting two characters together, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that, before any zombies show up to spoil the party, we get to see Dicey and Jack get to know each other, become friends, and fall in love.

Falling Apart

The sweet love story was so well done, it would have made for a satisfying story in itself. But as that plays out, there are background hints that something else is going on, something scary. A student disappears after a baseball game. Jack's scientist parents are away and can't come home as planned because of an unspecified emergency. An awful lot of cop cars pass by, sirens blaring.

By the time the zombies actually show up around page 70, the suspense has been quietly building up in the background, and the story makes a natural turn from a love story into a survival story. Well, not exactly, because the love story part is still important.

Friend or Foe?

With excellent characterization and plotting, I Love Him to Pieces is a great example of how to do comics well. The manga-influenced art is just about perfect here, too. It's realistic enough to carry the depth of emotion in the story, but cartoony enough to enable those emotions to be easily seen on the faces and in the postures of the characters.

Though this is -- more or less -- a romance title, my hope is that the zombies will attract other readers as well (boys, girls who don't usually like romance, adult readers, etc). Because the story is just so good it doesn't deserve to be dismissed as just a romance comic.

Another delightful surprise: the My Boyfriend is a Monster series, of which this is volume 1, is not an ongoing single-storyline series. Instead, it's standalone books by different writers and artists with a shared theme (as indicated by the title of the series). I'm hoping the rest of the books (read my review of book 2) are as good as this one, because I'm hooked.



Disclosure: A review copy was borrowed from her local library by the reviewer. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.