Not Your Idol (ARC Review)

Equal parts excited and nervous to embark on the journey of my first Manga ARC, I tentatively added Not Your Idol vol. 1 to the list of my top anticipated releases for 2020.

After all, the book sounded right up my alley, following the story of a formal idol star who has dropped out of her group and started dressing like a boy after being assaulted. 

This manga has some pretty straightforward themes about the pressures and difficulties too often associated with womanhood, but also about the hardships female idols must face.

There are a lot of great topics addressed in this book and every single one was handled, in all honesty, a lot better than I expected a Manga to handle them. The takeaways may be a little heavy-handed and obvious at times, but I didn’t mind. I don’t really expect this type of format to be subtle. 

Not only that, but this book was full of psychological suspense which is marvelously mirrored in the somewhat unnerving formatting of its frames throughout. There are some incredibly shocking turns that I truly did not see coming and I caught myself gasping out loud more than once (something that I don’t often do, for the record). The pacing was pristine, intersecting feel-good friendship moments with doubt, drama, and occasionally outright horror, right when readers start to get too comfortable. 

Everything I could want in a manga! Sign me up for the second volume…now!

I rated Not Your Idol Vol. 1 5 out of 5 stars.

Thank you to Netgalley and Viz Media for an early copy in exchange for an honest review!