First off, many thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this graphic as an ARC! I greatly appreciate it!

Another graphic novel, this one even better than the last! The start is really intriguing, with Mark's visualizations of religious figures, and there's a kind of welcoming warmth among the dread of this poor kid coming to terms with who he is. I'm an atheist, but wow, this story is gorgeous. I literally cried!

Five stars out of five for Hey, Mary!

*Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!*

I wanted to start this review by saying that I don't think I'm quite the intended audience, but the more I sit with it, the more I realize that maybe I am exactly the target audience. While I didn't grow in such an intensely religious environment, I was raised under God and all the associated beliefs.

I think Wheeler does an excellent job at capturing that juxtaposition between both sides of the religion argument/debate. The way that Mark struggles to reconcile his blooming emotions with his beliefs is heartbreaking and all too relatable. That being said, there is a balance here, with Wheeler neither condemning believer nor non-believer, instead making arguments for both sides. It's obvious that this graphic novel was created with a lot of care. 3.5 Stars

I loved this graphic novel about the conflict between faith and identity. Mark is a devout Catholic. He is also gay. With the help of his communities (both religious and queer) he learns to accept both parts of himself. Humorous, informative, and honest, this is a great book for all teens (and adults!).

Deftly threads the needle of not just exploring religious trauma but what it means to be religious and queer and that it's not necessary to abandon one for the other. Also, makes no excuses for the wrongs done in the name of Christianity.

I don't think I'm the target audience, given how extremely atheist I am, but I think for the right reader this book will be life-changing. Most grateful to NetGalley for the beautiful advance reader copy!

This is a 3.5 star rating rounded up to 4. C'mon, Goodreads, give us some half stars!

Hey Mary! is a good (albeit formulaic) look at a gay teen who is struggling with reconciling his sexuality with his Catholic faith. Mark spends the book learning about the history of LGBTQ+ and the Catholic Church. He experiences a series of encounters with individuals who give him ideas to think about and challenge him to reflect on his relationship to his faith.

There are times when Hey Mary! feels more like a lecture than a story. But there are also times with genuine emotion and complex ideas.

I'm very clearly in the minority here so I'm not going to take up too much space because objectively, I think this is an important book and I would still recommend it - listen to the positive reviews, kids! - so I'll keep it short n sweet:

This wasn't for me. At all. The only positive for me was the rep and the art, but everything else didn't work. I was bored, I did not care about any of the Bible-inspired stories albeit they were narrated through interesting forms and media each time, and I thought the ending was INCREDIBLY rushed. The conversation that was the most important to me was quick and convenient and I did not like it.

A Catholic teen is struggling with accepting his sexuality, torn between his very religious parents, his sense of belonging in the community, and a classmate who has an axe to grind. What works really well here is the divergent approaches to Catholicism--the wholesale rejection vs the mining the Bible and Saint traditions for queer stories and guidance. Reconciling Christians will be familiar with most of the arguments here, but for a teen audience grappling with these questions, this is a solid (only slightly preachy) coverage of the options. The art is assured and clear though does not wow particularly.

Thank you to NetGalley and Oni Press for the e-ARC of Hey, Mary!

Catholic guilt meets self love and gay awakenings in Hey, Mary! The graphic novel has an adorable and appealing art style and explores the intersections of queer identity, religion, and community in a very digestible and careful way.

Thanks to the publisher for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

The art style was kind of inconsistent at times. It's not a bad story, but not for me. I didn't grow up in a religious household so I couldn't really relate and I was getting a bit bored of the history lectures...of which there were many.

When I saw the cover for Hey, Mary! I knew this was going to be a book for me. Mark, a young Catholic boy, struggles with the realization that he is gay. This book was heavy on the Catholicism journey Mark went on and took a nice look at history and translations of the Bible. I think this one will be really huge to a lot of younger readers struggling with something similar. Though I am not Catholic, it was nice to see a book about this journey that ends with the main character still embracing their faith but seeing it a bit differently than before. The priest who helped Mark was a wonderful touch as well. I really enjoyed this one.

The art was beautiful, the characters were beautiful, the bible references were beautiful. I went to a catholic school from age 5 to 17 and I'm sure many many queer kids stuck there will benefit from reading this. I know past me would have, even though by high school I wasn't religious anymore. Present me wants to bang her head against the wall until the brains scatter all the way to Australia though.

Graphic novel about a closeted gay Catholic teenager coming to terms with both his faith and his own queerness. There's a great deal of information about queer or potentially queer saints of the past, some of whom are likely to be new to readers. While the book is critical of the Catholic Church generally, there's far more censure for evangelicals and Christians in general than specifically for the Church itself. The critiques are fair, although the vitriol one of the characters expresses towards the Church seems at times as hateful and unyielding as the past behaviors of the Church that the character criticizes (which may be the point, although this aspect isn't fully explored). As a lapsed Catholic myself, I struggled to identify with the MC's passion for the Church and his level of concern about the censure of both his community his god. Overall I think it was a good book that depicts a variety of ways in which people participate (or choose not to participate) with their Catholic faith, but the amount of despair that the MC feels about this conflict might be a barrier to some. Other characters are, however, much more accessible for those of us who do not have passionate feelings about the Church. We will certainly purchase this for our library collection.

received an e-ARC from NetGalley and am giving my honest review!

This was incredible. I did not grow up Catholic, but I went to Catholic School for a time. This was just amazing. The way that the story not only consistently reiterated that God will not hate you for being gay, nor is it a sin, but it also gave reasons. It gave historical evidence to support, and to show that people in the Bible were queer, saints were queer! It wasn’t just telling you that being gay isn’t a sin, it was showing how it’s just wrong via factual evidence of large figures of the Bible and history. This was very good and a very nice reminder of how religion should never be spread with hatred, because that’s not what religion is about

Really heavy read, honestly. It's a coming of age story about a catholic boy in denial of his queerness. The book itself is good and needs to exist, but this was a sore subject I would have rather not engaged with. Very important conversation to have though for anyone questioning.

“Hey Mary!” is a wonderful exploration of the experience of queer folks who grew up in and then felt ostracized by the Catholic Church. Balanced with humor and brilliant queer readings of biblical stories, this graphic novel tackles the contradictions of the church alongside a realistic depiction of the coming-out process. It has a bit of a sugary-sweet ending, but it’s welcome after some of the story’s heavier scenes. Readers from both sides of the story’s conflict will learn something from this excellent graphic novel.

I'm on a roll when it comes to books about LGBTQIA+ folks unpacking religious trauma...

I don't think I'm the target audience, given how extremely atheist I am, but I think for the right reader this book will be life-changing. The main character is grappling with Catholicism and how that relates to his identity. I found the story pretty sparse, but it serves as a vehicle for the ideas that the author wants to get across: that faith and identity are not, and ideally cannot, be in conflict. The various side characters feel differently about faith. Luca cannot separate faith from the many ways people have used it to advance their own interests and/or as a justification for violence. Jojo, a trans-femme drag queen, has mixed feelings about faith but has clearly thought deeply about her stance. Mark is devout, and is coming to realize that he's gay, but he doesn't think he's "allowed" to accept himself.

At times this comic felt a bit didactic, but Mark is getting all this information from all these various sources, some of whom are external, some of whom are representations of his faith. I LOVED the final conversation with Mary about how faith is a roadmap for surviving difficult times, and as I said, I don't even subscribe to this religion.

I'm sure that there will be people who are angry that this book exists, but it's basically a series of commentaries on how queerness has always existed, and that love does not run counter counter to belief. And---here's the part that DID resonate with me---if your God calls you to make the world a more judgmental and hateful place, that sounds like a God who doesn't deserve worship. Spoiler, maybe? Mark ends this book with his faith not only intact, but stronger than before. I respect that, and I suspect that there are readers whose lives will be changed by this short and highly philosophical graphic novel.

I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley, which did not impact the tone of this review.

Interesting story but felt very surface level with exploring religion and the characters were dull. The story was fast paced which I enjoyed.

I appreciate this book but also don't know if it the right book for my library. I think it fits better in a public library setting. The message is heartfelt and honest but also a bit repetitive. I was hoping for a supportive conclusion but I understand the intent of the author's choice.

Growing up Catholic can be hard. I should know, I did. But growing up Catholic and queer is even harder. In “Hey Mary!,” Andrew Wheeler is able to weave in references that capture the experience of growing up Catholic in the modern day. This is not to say that the story is exclusive to the Catholic/queer experience. Mark, the main character is very relatable, not just as a closeted queer person, but as a kid trying to figure things out at a rough time in his life. Now couple that with “keeping up appearances” for everyone else, and it is no surprise that Mark is having a rough go of it. One of the notes that hit me the hardest was the way that the adults in Mark’s life would all give the platitude of “You can tell me anything,” and I know many of us have been there. They may be truthful and will be non judgmental but in the anxiety adolescent brain, you don’t trust anyone.
The clever use of biblical and artistic imagery was a great way to manifest what Mark was going through in his mind. It made it more “real” to the reader.
This is the type of book that would have been a Godsend, no pun intended, to me when I was Mark’s age. As someone who still struggles at time with where my beliefs lie, and where I fit in, “Hey, Mary!” is a touching, illuminating and profound story of love, and “Love is all that God is.”