The Bookish Mindset

Overview:

Title: Brielle and Bear
Author: Salomey Doku
Published: March 2026
Genre: Graphic Novel, YA
Themes: Coming of Age, Identity

One sentence summary: A beautifully illustrated graphic novel duology, set at university which romance at its’ core.

One sentence review: I come away from these smiling so much!

Review:

I adore these graphic novels and I know I’d have been obsessed as a young teen too. Brielle and Bear’s story takes place over two parts, set in the midst of high school we have all the high school drama, friendship highs and sweetness you’d expect from a fairytale inspired series.

Book one sets the scene with our librarian and jock combo and is a super fun opener. Book two was released last month and we get more drama and gossip and a deeper insight into some of our characters.

I love Salomey Doku’s art style, I get lost in the pages of these graphic novels. You can feel the love and the joy falling from the pages. I really do just come away smiling.

This is perfect for teens and the younger scale of the YA bracket, as well as the adults who need their inner child healing and those that love a super sweet story and ending. I definitely recommend them and can’t wait to see what Salomey Doku is working on next.

If you’d like to get yourself a copy, you can support local bookshops and my work while doing so on Bookshop.org with this link here and here.

If you like what you’ve read and would like to access more content, I’d love if you could take a look at my substack and consider supporting my content on there too. You can also find more content on my Instagram here.

And don’t forget to check out my other blogs and reviews – you can find books with similar themes in the same folder link below, or click back onto blogs to see the whole offering.

Last updated 16/05/2026