written by David Steffen
Have you seen the Disney XD show Gravity Falls, created by Alex Hirsch? If you haven’t, you should! And you should probably do it before you read this book, because it’s a tie-in that will have major spoilers for the show–I think it will generally work better watching the show first, and then reading the book. Here’s a review of the show.
OK, so now you’ve caught up on the show, right? So this is that journal, the one that Dipper discovers and uses a guide to the town of Gravity Falls through the duration of the series, and the author of which is a major mystery of the show.
I don’t usually talk much about book design in the reviews, but this book is really really nice. Usually I’m kindof ambivalent about book jackets, because I’m honestly not sure what purpose they serve. But in this case, the book jacket includes all the stuff that you would expect to see on a book cover–the title on the cover, the title on the spine, the blurbs on the backet, the bar code. But if you remove the book jacket, the book cover matches quite closely to the appearance of the journal on the show–no title on the spine, no blurbs or barcode, and the cover is just a six-fingered golden hand with a number “3” drawn on it. It’s very eye-catching and consistent with the show which is cool. AND, the inside of the book jacket has extra illustrations–blueprints of science fictional contraptions from the series, images which don’t appear anywhere else. The book also comes with one of those nice attached-to-the-binding silky bookmarks that I’m used to only seeing in hymnals at church–very nice touch.
Inside the book there are three distinct sections. The first is the contents of the journal before Dipper finds it in episode 1 of the series. You see these pages in the show, but usually only briefly and you can only make out the titles and major illustrations. The book contains all of those, as well as some that I don’t think ever appear in the show, so this part is my favorite part of the journal, because you are reading what Dipper read on his own. The second part happens DURING the show, and is Dipper writing new pages into the journal. I love the show, but I found this the weakest section because I had already seen the episodes, so it felt redundant, and each episode covered in the book only covered a couple pages, so it also felt rushed and without the characteristic humor of the show. The third section happens near the end of the series, after a major event that I won’t spoil for you, but which changes the nature of the content of the journal again. The design all makes sense, but I found that middle section pretty weak.
The author of the book is often secretive, and so has chosen to write some notes in code. Not enough that you’ll be missing major portions of the book, but small bits here and there. If you feel like trying out your hand at cracking codes, this is a little added feature. And if you don’t, you can easily find the solutions with a little Googling if you want to read that extra content.
I was very happy to get my hands on the book, both for the look, to find out some backstories that aren’t in the show, and read some more of the original journal entries. If you love Gravity Falls, odds are that you’ll love this book. (And if you haven’t seen Gravity Falls, you should!
I always wanted this book see all my friends with it and I feel jealous I really really want this book hopefully the mail FedEx or any other mail send it to me
My grandson is a huge Gravity Falls fan. In 3rd grade, he was still struggling with reading and being an outdoor sort of boy, he just didn’t put the effort into it. He heard about this book and was determined to get it. Let me tell you — he never put it down. His teacher called my daughter and said whatever it was he was reading, it made him a reader. And this book is in cursive script! Bravo, Gravity Falls! Grandson went on to read the most books in his grade, his name was put into a “hat” for a drawing, and he won a bicycle. Reading has its perks.
Hi, I just have to reply. You write: “I’m kind of ambivalent about book jackets, because I’m honestly not sure what purpose they serve”.
Imagine all books in the world were of the same size and had a black jacket. Do I have to explain my point? 🙂 Book jackets are very important, for some books more so for some less.
I grew up in communist Czechia and even thoug I was a child I remember all the houses were mostly grey (and in disrepair) and the thought could be, why should houses be different from each other, it is important what is inside. Well it is not so.
A black book jacket would still be a book jacket! I am just saying I don’t understand why they don’t forego the jacket to print on the book itself.