Teen Titans: Beast Boy Loves Raven

Kami Garcia and Gabriel Picolo’s Teen Titans: Beast Boy Loves Raven continues their retelling of the Titans’ origins following their previous books, Raven and Beast Boy, introducing two of the core Titans to each other. Both Raven and Gar find themselves in Nashville to meet Slade Wilson, who secretly works to recruit empowered teens for H.I.V.E. While they wait, they keep running into each other in the city and eventually begin spending time together sampling the food and seeing the sights. In addition to further exploring these characters as they interact, balancing their desire to share with each other against their natural instinct toward self-reliance following the events of their own books, Garcia and Picolo begin to introduce the other Titans.

In a great bit of foreshadowing, Gar and Raven split up at a crossroads with Robin street (p. 91). Damian Wayne, similarly summoned by Slade, finds himself tailing Raven and Gar while Raven’s foster sister, Max, uses her ability show more to commune with spirits in order to keep an eye on Raven. As in the previous volumes, Slade largely appears in the background, though he helps to foreshadow Starfire (p. 71, 181). Just as George Pérez and Mark Wolfman used the Titans to touch on adolescent themes, Garica and Picolo use Gar and Raven’s developing powers as a key allegory for adolescence (172).

Like the previous volumes, Garcia demonstrates a remarkable understanding of these characters in her writing. She sets them in the modern day, but their essence comes through in a way that reveals just why they continue to resonate with readers. Meanwhile Picolo fully demonstrates his artistic talents here, again rendering characters with contemporary designs that evoke the earlier work of Pérez and Wolfman while situating the characters in the modern day. Colorist David Calderon continues to play with the themes he developed in the previous books. Where Raven and Beast Boy all had unique palettes reflecting their central characters, Calderon begins to blend those palettes and bring in new color themes for Damian Wayne and Starfire, foreshadowing the vivid life of the Titans as a whole. Beast Boy Loves Raven is a wonderful story for long-time Teen Titans fans as well as newcomers, honoring their history while updating it for new readers. show less

Trigger Warnings: kidnapping, torture

It's only been a few days since Raven recovered her memories, trapped her demon father, Trigon, and had her heart broken for the first time. Now, she needs to find a way to get rid of Trigon from her amulet.

Garfield (Gar) is still having a hard time believing he can change into different animals, but is more hurt that his parents kept this secret from him. It also doesn't help that he can seem to figure out how to control these new abilities.

Both are seeking answers from the same person: Slade Wilson.

When their paths cross in Nashville, Raven and Gar can't help but feel a connection, despite the secrets between them. It will take a lot of trust and courage to overcome their past wounds, but will that be enough to find acceptance in their darkness?

Kami Garcia and Gabriel Picolo did an amazing job at bringing these characters to life again. Loved the colors and the brightness of the panels.

I did feel like Gar and Raven's romance was a little show more rushed, but hey, that's a YA novel for you, so it didn't bother me so much. I also really enjoyed Max and Damian and the journey that went on.

I can't wait to see what else is in store for these characters. show less

Kami Garcia is back with her intro to the Teen Titans series. First we got Raven, then Beast Boy, and now they come together. This book mainly follows their meeting and also introduces Dewayne Wayne. Most the book follows Raven and Gar finding and falling for each other. They get kidnapped, and need to be rescued. The book ends in the air, so more are definitely on their way. Overall I liked this book. It has a bit too much “instalove” for my taste, and just felt like filler for bigger action that is on the way.

I Decide My Fate

Kami Garcia and illustrator Gabriel Picolo return to give readers an endearing Raven and Beast Boy romance. Lured in by promises from Slade to learn more about their powers, Raven and Gar accidently meet in Nashville Tennessee. When Slade fails to show, both are left to tour the run-down city together. While their first meeting is stormy, as they get to know each other they find it’s nice not to be alone. Max, concerned about Raven’s journey, searches for her, and instead finds Damian Wayne.

Gabriel Picolo’s art is as detailed and consistently draw as his previous books. Including the use of Raven’s purple and Beast Boy’s green, to emphasis their dominant point of view. The action panels are dynamic and fun to read. Kami Garcia is faithful to Raven and Gar’s overall character, and their relationship is as fun and cute as expected. Though as in the previous books, these characters have a new origin story separate from the comics. Especially Damian, who show more has yet to meet his father. Max and Damian’s banter is a great dynamic, hopefully hinting at a future group team up.

Kami Garcia and illustrator Gabriel Picolo do a great job making these iconic comic characters accessible to a teen audience. Unburdened by the complicated web of comic book cannon, these characters have a lot to share about identity, and young adult relationships. All these characters have different complicated backgrounds, but they don’t have to face the uncertainty of being different alone. With the added bonus of Raven and Beast Boy falling in love. This is a wonderful addition to the Teen Titans Series, and for fans of superpower teens. show less

Representation: N/A?
Trigger warnings: N/A?
Score: Seven points out of ten.
This review can also be found on The StoryGraph.
This was a good novel, but I enjoyed the first one better. In the book, Raven and Garfield meet each other for the first time, Garfield didn't have much personality, but he had cool superpowers, and an attraction to Raven, and once again, I liked Raven developing her character further, it really adds to the story as a whole. There's a new antagonist, which was just an evil corporation, and they trapped Raven and Garfield in some cells to experiment upon them, but they managed to escape the building (Garfield's beast powers contributed to this), but they had to leave the corporation alone, which was kind of bittersweet. If you like a story about superheroes with character development, this is the book for you, but you might need to read the books in order first before you read this one.

The writing wasn’t very strong in some areas, and the dialogue could be cheesy. Since Raven doesn’t know Gar, why would she agree to share a motel room with him??? I know she had lost her wallet, but stranger danger. I feel her sharing the room with him could’ve happened more plausibly. Still, I’m excited to read the next book.

But the artwork was lovely as always. Raven had some cute outfits!

And the appearance of … Robin (Damian)! Looking sharp. I would love a Robin Jacket like that. He and Max, Rae’s foster sister, have some flirtation going on. Interesting since Damian in the cartoon adaptions has something with Raven. Wonder how Starfire fits into this. :D

Perfectly sweet. My only complaint is that each of these graphic novel volumes are so short that I feel a little unsatisfied. Maybe I'd like them more if they were grouped together in one larger novel?

Three books in, and we finally get something that looks like a group that could be called the Teen Titans. But it is assembled in a slow, meandering process that has left me pretty much done with this series.

And yet I found myself enthralled by the pages because Raven is such a goth cutie. It took me a while to realize that the artist is drawing her exactly like my childhood crush, Winona Ryder, even using some photo reference it seems:


(Click to see full comparison image)

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I loved it, but I'm really wondering how the Robin part of storyline is going to work when Starfire comes around

I liked it but I needed more cuteness and depth. It left me with disappointment

love the art style and the young adult vibes