Most read Comics books

A simplified retelling of George Orwell's dystopian classic, adapted by Michael Dean for the Penguin Readers / Pearson English graded-reader series at Level 4 for learners of English. Winston Smith lives in Oceania, a state where the Party controls every fact, every image, and every thought, and where the face of Big Brother watches from every wall. Winston's job is to rewrite old newspapers so the past always agrees with the present, but in secret he hates the Party and longs for the truth. When he falls in love with Julia, the two try to hold on to something real in a world built on lies, and their quiet rebellion pulls them toward a confrontation with the Party's terrifying power. The graded text keeps the shape and force of Orwell's story while using controlled vocabulary and shorter sentences, making one of the twentieth century's most important novels accessible to intermediate readers.

Bella Swan is left devastated when the Cullens leave Forks, and slowly finds comfort in a deepening friendship with Jacob Black — who carries supernatural secrets of his own. As she's drawn back into a dangerous hidden world, Bella faces an ancient vampire authority. The second book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga.

• love triangle
• forbidden love

George Milton and Lennie Small are itinerant ranch workers during the Great Depression, drifting from job to job across California with a shared dream: to save enough to buy a small plot of land where they can live off "the fatta the lan'" and, crucially, where Lennie can tend rabbits. George is sharp and protective; Lennie is a gentle giant of enormous strength and the mind of a child, prone to accidentally crushing whatever he loves too hard. Arriving at a new ranch, they find a fragile foothold among a cast of the dispossessed — the aging swamper Candy, the isolated Black stable hand Crooks, and the lonely, unnamed wife of the boss's son, whose need for attention becomes dangerous. For a moment their dream of land seems within reach, buoyed by Candy's offer to pitch in his savings. But Lennie's inability to control his own strength sets in motion a tragedy that forces George into an impossible final act of loyalty. John Steinbeck's 1937 novella is a spare, devastating parable about friendship, dreams deferred, and the loneliness of migrant labor in Depression-era America. Frequently taught and frequently banned, it remains one of the most widely read short novels in American literature.

This is a story about a father and son traveling through a desolate landscape. They face harsh conditions and difficult choices as they try to survive. The journey tests their bond and forces them to confront the harsh realities of their world.

Two teenage boys at a British grammar school — one a rugby player, the other a quiet artist — find their friendship deepening into something more as they navigate school, identity, and the complexities of growing up.

• coming of age
• slow burn
• found family

Charlie and Nick meet when they're assigned to sit together at their all-boys school. Charlie, who is openly gay, expects nothing but a friendship — but as the two grow close, Nick starts to question feelings he's never faced before. A warm, gentle graphic novel about first love and the courage to be yourself, and the opening chapter of Alice Oseman's bestselling series.

• coming of age
• slow burn
• friends to lovers

Set in Omaha, Nebraska, across the 1986–87 school year, Eleanor & Park is Rainbow Rowell's story of two sixteen-year-olds who fall in love on the wrong side of everything. Eleanor is the new girl: big, awkward, with wild red hair and thrift-store clothes, going home each night to a crowded house ruled by a violent stepfather. Park is a half-Korean kid who has learned to keep his head down and blend into the background of his working-class neighborhood. They meet on the school bus, where Eleanor takes the only open seat — next to Park. Neither wants to be there. But over weeks of shared comic books and mixtapes, a wary silence turns into something that consumes them both. Told in alternating voices, the novel traces first love in real time: awkward, breathless, and shadowed by the reality of Eleanor's home life. Honest about class, race, body image, and abuse, Eleanor & Park is a tender, clear-eyed portrait of two misfits who are smart enough to know first love rarely lasts, and brave enough to try anyway.

• coming of age
• multiple povs

Charlie and Nick are officially boyfriends, and Charlie is starting to feel ready to say "I love you". But Nick has a lot on his mind — coming out to his dad, and a growing worry about Charlie's relationship with food. As summer turns to autumn and a new school year begins, the two of them learn what love actually asks of you. The fourth volume of Alice Oseman's LGBTQ+ graphic novel series.

• coming of age
• friends to lovers

Charlie and Nick are officially boyfriends, but navigating their relationship in the public eye is a new challenge. As they head to Paris for a school trip, they must figure out how and when to tell their friends about their relationship. With their feelings deepening, Nick and Charlie lean on each other for support.

• coming of age
• friends to lovers

Coraline Jones has just moved with her parents into a flat in an old, subdivided house, and her explorer's curiosity keeps running up against grown-ups who are too busy to pay her much attention. Then she finds a door that should open onto a brick wall — and one day doesn't. On the other side is a corridor leading to a home almost exactly like her own, but better: the food is tastier, the toys are wilder, and the Other Mother and Other Father dote on her endlessly. There is only one condition. To stay in this other world forever, Coraline must let the Other Mother sew black buttons over her eyes. When she refuses and tries to leave, she discovers that the Other Mother has taken her real parents, and that Coraline is not the first child to be lured through the door. To win them all back, she will have to be brave when she is most afraid, and clever enough to beat a creature that changes the rules whenever it likes. Neil Gaiman's award-winning novella is a modern dark fairy tale — creepy, funny, and quietly wise about courage — that has become a classic of children's and crossover fantasy, later adapted into the celebrated stop-motion film.

• portal fantasy

Three young men flee their village with an Aes Sedai after Trollocs attack, beginning the epic that launches The Wheel of Time.

• chosen one
• quest
• coming of age
• mentor figure

Prince Hamlet returns to Elsinore to find his father dead and his uncle Claudius on the throne. When his father's ghost names Claudius as his murderer, Hamlet is charged with revenge — and spends the play caught between conscience and action.

• revenge
• betrayal

Told by three witches that he will be king, the Scottish general Macbeth, spurred on by his wife, murders King Duncan and takes the throne. But guilt and paranoia drive him to kill again and again, and his blood-soaked reign hurtles toward ruin. Shakespeare's darkest tragedy of ambition, prophecy, and moral collapse.

• villain protagonist
• betrayal
• morally grey

In a world where masked vigilantes were once commonplace, a murder investigation threatens to expose a conspiracy that could lead to nuclear annihilation. A group of former heroes, now living in retirement, are drawn back into a dangerous game of cat and mouse. This graphic novel explores the complex nature of heroism and the dark side of power.

• morally grey
• anti hero
• rivals
• betrayal

Blue Sargent comes from a family of psychics, but her own abilities seem to be limited to making others stronger. Her life takes a turn when she meets Gansey, a mysterious student at the elite Aglionby Academy. Despite warnings from her family, Blue is drawn into Gansey's world of magic and secrets, uncovering a dangerous connection that could change everything.

• found family
• coming of age
• quest

After his family is murdered one night, a toddler wanders out of his home and up the hill into an old graveyard, where the resident ghosts take him in and grant him the Freedom of the Graveyard. Named Nobody Owens — Bod for short — he is raised by a loving pair of ghostly parents and watched over by Silas, a mysterious guardian who is neither living nor dead and who can pass beyond the graveyard's walls to bring the boy food and knowledge. Growing up among the dead, Bod learns their uncanny skills — to Fade, to Dreamwalk, to slip through the boundary between worlds — while longing for the world of the living. But the man who killed his family is still out there, patiently searching for the child who got away, and the graveyard cannot shelter Bod forever. Neil Gaiman's Newbery- and Carnegie-winning The Graveyard Book is a spellbinding, gently macabre coming-of-age fantasy — a graveyard reimagining of The Jungle Book, full of wonder, danger, and heart.

• found family
• coming of age

Nick and Charlie have said "I love you" — but as Nick's final year at Truham draws to a close, university offers force them to face a future that could pull them apart. Charlie wants to be supportive, but he's terrified of losing the closeness they've built, and still working through recovery from an eating disorder, he wrestles with taking their relationship further. The fifth volume of Alice Oseman's bestselling LGBTQ+ graphic novel series follows Nick and Charlie — and their friends Tao, Elle, Tara, Darcy and Isaac — through distance, intimacy and growing up together.

• coming of age
• found family

Step into the tumultuous world of Jean Valjean, a man defined by his struggle against societal judgment and the unyielding pursuit of Inspector Javert. Victor Hugo's monumental novel paints a vivid picture of 19th-century France, exploring profound themes of justice, love, and the possibility of redemption amidst hardship.

• redemption arc
• morally grey
• reluctant hero
• sacrifice

Richard Mayhew’s ordinary life shatters when he stops to help a mysterious girl. This single act of kindness plunges him into London Below, a hidden, dangerous world teeming with forgotten people and strange beasts. To reclaim his old life, Richard must navigate this perilous new reality and confront the darkness lurking beneath the familiar streets.

• fish out of water
• portal fantasy
• quest

Alana, a soldier from the technologically advanced planet Landfall, and Marko, a prisoner of war from Landfall's magic-wielding moon Wreath, fall in love across the front line of a galaxy-spanning conflict. Their daughter Hazel — narrating from somewhere in the future — is born on the war-torn planet Cleave in the volume's opening pages, and her very existence makes the family a target for both governments and for a string of freelance bounty hunters. Collecting the first six issues of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples' Image Comics series.

• forbidden love
• found family
• morally grey
• family saga

Monkey D. Luffy sets out alone to find the legendary One Piece treasure and become King of the Pirates. Along the way he frees Coby from the pirate captain Alvida, and rescues the swordsman Roronoa Zoro from the corrupt Marine captain Morgan — gaining his very first crewmate.

• quest
• found family

Four young lovers flee into an enchanted forest, only to find themselves caught in a magical mix-up orchestrated by fairies. Their romantic pursuits become hilariously complicated by Puck's meddling, leading to mistaken identities and unexpected affections. This classic comedy explores the whimsical and often bewildering nature of love under a spell.

• love triangle
• forced proximity
• fish out of water

The first part of Marjane Satrapi's celebrated graphic memoir. Marji is a bright, headstrong girl in Tehran when the 1979 Islamic Revolution overturns her world. As the regime tightens and war with Iraq begins, she witnesses arrests, bombings, and the gap between public conformity and private life — until her parents make the wrenching decision to send her abroad. A coming-of-age story told in bold black-and-white artwork, balancing humour and horror.

• coming of age

Art Spiegelman's Maus is a powerful graphic novel that recounts his father Vladek's experiences as a Polish Jew during the Holocaust. Through Vladek's harrowing memories, the book explores the immense trauma of the war and its lasting effects on family relationships. It's a deeply personal account of survival and the complex bond between father and son.

• multiple povs
• coming of age
• survival

When advanced Martian machines land in England, a man must fight for his survival against an alien force that threatens to wipe out humanity. This classic science fiction novel depicts a desperate struggle against overwhelming odds, exploring the resilience of the human spirit when civilization itself is at stake.

• survival

The first volume of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, collecting issues #1-8. In 1916 an occultist's botched ritual snares Dream of the Endless instead of his sister Death, and holds him for seventy years. Freed at last, Dream sets out to reclaim the three totems of his power - a search that runs through the ruins of his own kingdom, down into Hell, and into a locked ward at Arkham Asylum.

• quest
• morally grey
• revenge

Greta, an apprentice blacksmith, finds a lost tea dragon in the marketplace and returns it to Hesekiel and Erik, the kind owners of a tea shop. They teach her about the dying art of caring for these gentle creatures, and she grows close to their shy ward, Minette.

• found family
• coming of age

In the Japanese town of Kurôzu-cho, a sinister curse takes hold, but it's not one of spirits or specters. Instead, an ancient, inescapable pattern of spirals begins to warp reality and drive the townsfolk to madness. Follow Kirie Goshima as she witnesses her home and its inhabitants contort into horrifying new shapes under the relentless influence of this spiraling force.

• survival

In a world where humanity's last remnants are protected by colossal walls, a terrifying threat looms: the man-eating Titans. When these monstrous beings shatter their sanctuary, a young boy's life is irrevocably changed, igniting a fierce desire for vengeance. This manga plunges readers into a brutal struggle for survival against overwhelming odds.

• survival
• revenge
• chosen one

In a future England ruled by a fascist regime, a mysterious anarchist known only as V fights for freedom. Using theatrical flair and acts of defiance, he ignites a rebellion, drawing a young woman into his dangerous crusade. She must confront the brutal reality of her world and decide if V's extreme methods are the only path to liberation.

• anti hero
• revenge
• morally grey
• secret identity