I give My Friend Dahmer three out of five stars. Since the trailer and the book are so similar, it felt like I was reading information that I already knew which made the book less shocking and interesting. Before reading this book, I had already seen the trailer for the movie based on this book. While it was interesting to learn more about the origins of Jeffrey Dahmer’s behavior, this book was only okay to me.

Especially with My Friend Dahmer, I appreciated the author had first hand knowledge of Jeffrey Dahmer’s high school years because he associated with him in high school. One reason that I really love graphic novels is that they can take a subject that I don’t usually pick-up, in this case non-fiction, and make it more accessible to read. From police reports, interviews, and accounts from the people who knew Jeffrey Dahmer (like the author himself), this book details the origins of Jeffrey’s strange behavior. My Friend Dahmer by Derk Backderf follows the high school years of notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer before he commits his first murder. Here are my thoughts on three graphic novels on a few recent reads: I love graphic novels because they’ve really pushed me to read subjects that I normally wouldn’t read because they are in a more accessible format. One area of books that I’ve decided to branch out into is graphic novels. Recently, I’ve pushed myself out of my comfort zone of fluffy contemporary books in order to discover new favorites.

Relish graphic novel