Jimmy GownleyReviews

Charming, valuable to the right audience, not quite groundbreaking or anything though, so I have to choose 3 instead 4 stars. I do want to consider more by Gownley.

impulse grab at the library August 2023... maybe if I'd started with the first book it would have made more sense... I skipped through to the end after getting to p. 58 and my brain is just fried...

5/10, it was ok.

Jimmy Gownley's Amelia Rules series is one of my very favorites. If I stopped to rank the graphic novels series I've read, it would easily fall in the top 5. It's not dark, grim, or scary; in other words, it's nothing like my other favorites. It's funny, moving and it just rings true.
So when I was searching for more in the series, I found this instead, the author's story of how he got started in comics when he was a teenager, told in comic book form.
Amelia Rules fans will love it. I think it will probably appeal to people who haven't read Amelia Rules too. The artwork is appealing, the humor self-deprecating and honest.
Good stuff and a quick read.

Jimmy Gownley has given us another sweet, funny installment in the Amelia Rules series. Wish I didn't devour these so quickly. I already miss Amelia and her friends.

I adore this series. It has so much humor and heart-it's one of my favorite new-to-me things this year. Great for children and grown-ups, I can't think of who this wouldn't appeal to, but I think it would have a special appeal to Calvin and Hobbes or Peanuts fans. Read it read it read it!

5 stars for the art and silly humor
3 stars for the story, especially after the big reveal

Maybe I’m thinking about it too hard, but I couldn’t make sense of it. I mean, how did he live? Where did he get money? How did he go for more than one school year without being enrolled or anyone looking for his parents?

I was still glad to discover there was a Jimmy Gownley book I hadn’t read yet, and I enjoyed most of it.

Gownley is trying for a madcap and quirky Ferris Bueller tone in this story about kids trying to change the world one good deed at a time, but the end result is a cluttered and overlong jumble that left me caring little about any of the characters or their actions. Meh.

a cartoon memoir, for the ages 12-14

Pretty cool -- I liked the biographical aspects, the kid-empowerment parts, and the thoughtful tackling of how to be a good human being. Nicely done and funny.

Graphic novels are tough to compare against books. They are often labeled as immature and for me, any way just don't the weight and depth of a book.

This is Jimmy Gownley's graphic novel memoir and of his pivotal 8th grade - 9th grade years when he was trying to find his legs as a comic book artist. I really like the message in the book of "You're special but not that special."

Any graphic novel that can get a (positive) emotional response from me and make me think has to be pretty good and The Dumbest Idea Ever does just that.

I like this. It has such a Sunday morning comics feel, y’know. This also has to be Gownley’s most racially-diverse series too. There’s some real heart here, and the dialogue’s witty. kudos, for subverting the reader. I was just counting down the pages until Kirby died (morbid I know), but he didn’t! A lot of the story’s events are farfetched like… how’d Kirby manage to keep up his identity as a viral youtuber(?). surely, some kid would’ve known him. Where was he living at? In another foster home? , but kids will love it.

Again, this is a story made for kids in mind. All the teachers are literally super-villain evil haha, so that’s going to appeal more to a kid angry at teach for too many Zoom assignments more so than an adult who knows teachers can be multifaceted (tho there are some seriously miserable teachers).

Still, I liked reading this for the most part. There are also multiple plot points with Kelly's letters to Mimi, Raj's subplot, Kirby Finn shenanigans, and the countdown of reasons not to grow up.

3.5

3.5

Children's graphic novel about a little kid who plays superhero with her friends, and is plotting all the Christmas loot she's going to get. Some people don't get as much loot! Unfair! Does Santa really exist? The kids go on an adventure to disprove Santa's existence, but aren't sure themselves. Amelia discovers that one of her friends doesn't have a lot of money and doesn't get toys, and then plays Santa with her friend so that he can have a cool toy. ... At the end of the book is the origin story which shows Amelia moving to town, after her parents divorce, and trying to become friends with the gang. [return][return]Nice enough kid-centered story about kindness, and the "Christmas spirit" of giving. But, very definitely white and Christmas-oriented. No non-Christmas celebrants are acknowledged (Jews? Muslims? nah) and everyone, so far as I could tell, is pretty which white. Kids who are flirting with the idea of whether Santa is "real" or not won't learn anything particularly new, but observant readers will figure something out from the aunt's response, and from the general questions of class and poverty.

book told through graphic novel form about the author trying to write a graphic novel. why are graphic novels important? Do they even matter? The author and main character Jimmy Gownley seems to think they matter. Good for parents who don't necessarily think that graphic novels mean as much as they do to some kids.

Even Jimmy Gownley cannot extend my interest in a Disney movie I watched with my daughter eight years ago.

I like that he tackles the timely theme of alternative facts and the need for fact checking, but I'm being petty and deducting a point for him and editors failing to do their own fact checking and misusing "slander" when referring to the libel that occurred in a book everyone is reading in the story.

I've been following Jimmy Gownley's comic work from the melancholy Shades of Gray series in the '90s through the quirky Amelia Rules! books of '00s because he makes reliably entertaining comics. And that shows in this nice volume of gentle humor and action spinning out of the Tangled movie.

I do have to be a grumpy old man, though, and point out that back when I was a kid, Gold Key/Western Publishing would have formatted this same sort of Disney licensed story into an 8-panel grid and published it as a 25 cent comic book. I look at the $8.99 price tag on this, note that it took me ten minutes to read, and realize that I probably would have skipped it if I couldn't have checked it out of the library. (Note: This bit of crabbiness played no role in my rating for the book.)

I have loved the Amelia Rules series since the first book came out, and was so happily surprised to see that this one has come out! It's been ages since a new Amelia Rules book came out!

Anyway, this one is just as good as all of the previous ones in the series. Rhonda's new hairdo will take some getting used to, however, but I think she's happy with it, so I can adjust.

Thought this was a new one, but the stories are the same as from earlier Amelia Rules books. Cute little holiday book, tho.

10- Sometimes the dumbest idea ever...isn't!
A great graphic memoir!

Jimmy, a popular 13 year old, has it all--good looks, popular, and a sports star. After falling ill, his life changes and not for the better. Jimmy has a bad idea that ends in changing everything.

Great book for comic lovers the illustrations were fun and Amelia's personality is an instant charmer. Kids will be able to relate to the plot as Amelia goes through similar awkward experiences as a growing curious child does.

This book is about a girl named Amelia who attends middle school and is a member of the middle school cheer squad and a couple multiple themed super hero clubs. She has many friends and spends a lot of her time with her super hero groups. This book is the final one of a series of 8 and in this one she uses the lessons that she learned in the previous books to help her find her missing aunt.