Switch Up Your Normal Book Routine With These 15 Graphic Novels

Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan is set in 1988 . . . at first. It follows four newspaper delivery girls who, after a run-in with a group of teenagers, follow them and discover a time machine. They learn that these are no ordinary teens - they're from the future, and they're fighting a battle over the laws of time travel itself.

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson started as a webcomic and has since become a New York Times bestseller. Set in a fantasy world, it follows the adventures of the eponymous Nimona, a young shapeshifter and sidekick to Lord Ballister Blackheart, a villain with a vendetta. This tale starts off as amusing, but quickly becomes a gripping thriller.

If you love Riverdale as much we we do, you're going to want to enjoy it in graphic novel form with Archie, Volume 1. The reboot, written by Mark Waid, Fiona Staples, Annie Wu, and Veronica Fish, comes with a new design aesthetic and more mature story to match the TV hit.

Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's beautiful, heart-wrenching memoir of her life in Tehran, Iran, from ages 6 to 14, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The perspective and political commentary through the narrator's young eyes is personal and deeply insightful.

Are you into steampunk? Art-deco? Matriarchal dystopian societies? Horror? Monstress by Marjorie Liu has it all (no joke). Set in an alternate matriarchal 1900s Asia, it tells the story of a teenage girl who shares a mysterious psychic link with a monster of tremendous power, a connection that leads to dangerous otherworldly powers.

If you love HBO's Watchmen, you'll love learning where it all began in Alan Moore's original comic of the same name, which is set in 1985. While the TV show is set closer to present day, it keeps everything in the original comic canon.

This One Summer is a beautiful coming-of-age novel by cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki. It follows Rose, who stays in the same lake house with her family every summer, and spends most of the time with her friend Windy. But with Rose's parents constantly fighting, and one of the local teens getting into something bad, this summer looks a little different — and a little darker.

If you love reading scary stories, you'll love Through the Woods by Emily Carroll. It features five short stories, made far spookier than a regular novel by its chilling illustrations and font design.

Does that font look familiar? If you loved the Beautiful Creatures movie, you can learn where it all started in the original graphic series of the same name by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stoll. (Sadly, there's no Neil Patrick Harris in this version.)

This tragic and timely graphic novel is the first of its kind to take on police brutality for a YA audience. I Am Alfonso Jones, written by Tony Medina, is fiction that feels all too real. It follows Alfonso, a young teen buying his first suit, who's shot by a police officer who mistakes a clothing hanger for a gun. But his story doesn't stop there — he begins his journey in the spirit world, where he's guided by well-known victims of police shootings. This graphic novel feels more poignant today than ever before.

Scott Westerfeld, the author of the Uglies series, creates a new dystopia with Spill Zone. Set in a futuristic Poughkeepsie, NY, the Spill Zone is the result of a catastrophic event. Collectors pay top dollar for photographs of the bizarre attractions within it, which is why Addison is so familiar with the Spill Zone — she uses these images to pay for the care of her sister, Lexa, who's been mute ever since the disaster.

Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir, Fun Home, is a critically acclaimed bestseller and self-described "family tragicomic." In it, Bechdel tells the story of how she learned that her father was gay shortly after she came out as a lesbian in college. A few weeks after this revelation, her father passes away, leaving her to solve the mystery of his past on her own.

Blankets is a coming-of-age novel by Craig Thompson. It tells the story of his childhood, set in a small town in the Midwest with a rigorously Christian family. He falls in love with Raina at a church camp in the winter, but the true story is in how their relationship falls apart over time. As the book jacket will tell you, "It's a universal story, and Thompson's vibrant brushstrokes and unique page designs make the familiar heartbreaking all over again."

In Honor Girl, 15-year-old Maggie Thrash has spent every summer of her life at a camp for girls in Appalachia. But this summer, she feels pulled to an older female counselor named Erin. Maggie doesn't know how to make sense of her feelings, and the camp isn't ready for them, either.

Bone #1: Out From Boneville is the first book in Jeff Smith's New York Times bestselling, award-winning graphic novel series. It follows the three Bone cousins, who have been kicked out of their hometown and start the series wandering a vast, unknown desert. Despite its whimsical look, the series will surprise you, and it stays lighthearted even when the plot turns dark.