Rocket Girl, Graphic Novel Review

Rocet Girl by author Brandon Montclare, Illustrations Amy Reeder

Rocket Girl is what happens when someone has a loose premise they like and decides to turn it into a book without thinking through any of the finer details. This 2 volume graphic novel series is about a 15 year old police officer from 2013 who travels back in time to the 80s for some reason.

How is a 15 year old a police officer? Why would she need to travel back in time alone? These questions are never answered. We’re supposed to just roll with the concept and accept it. I tried to do that but when I don’t know the whys of a story it gets very hard for me to care about it. I believe she’s 15 just to appeal to a young adult audience becausee that sells pretty well, there’s no other reason that I can think of.

Most of the book is light sci fi and a rather uninteresting fish out of water story. Rocket Girl is called that because she has what is essentially a jet pack from the future but she doesn’t really have a lot else going for her. She’s just future novelty in the 80s setting.

We never learn enough about her or the other characters to really get invested in their vague conflict so most of the book fell really flat for me. I found myself getting very distracted as I read it. It also has the problem of trying to be a sciencey book without actually understanding any science. So we get generalized characters that are just smart on all the subjects as the plot determines is needed.

Essentially the lightest of science fiction. Would it hurt to do a little bit of research when writing a book?

The main redeeming factors of Rocket Girl is that the art is pretty decent, lots of bright colors and excited faces. And the ending. I actually loved the ending so that bumped the whole book’s score up a notch. One, it actually has an ending, which is very rare for graphic novels these days. Or any books actually, everything has a sequel anymore. So it actually having a real ending is huge by itself.

I just wish that the book leading up to the great ending had been thought out more. It needed more character development and more backstory. I need more to go on than girl with jet pack is also time traveler.

I think this is a cute one for a younger audience. If you have a teenage daughter maybe she’ll like Rocket Girl more than I did. She’ll have more fun with the young protagonist and maybe be more forgiving of the book’s flaws.

3/5 rockets 🚀🚀🚀

Instead of Rocket Girl maybe read Primer

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Buy it here: Rocket Girl Volume 1: Times Squared