Book Review: "The Book of Bill"

By Alex Hirsch of Gravity Falls Fame

Guess who pre-ordered the Barnes and Noble Exclusive edition of “The Book of Bill”~ Me, it was me.

I love Gravity Falls, though I was not the intended age demographic when it started airing. That was 2012, and I was in college. I’m in a discord group where I found out I was the oldest Gravity Falls fan and that the others had watched the show when they were 11 and 9 years old. There is nothing that will make you feel older than talking to people who think are close to your own age, only to discover that you’re eleven years older than them. But anyway, Gravity Falls is great. I really recommend watching it on either Hulu or Disney+ or getting the DVDs.

If you want to read this “Book of Bill,” you’ll have to watch the show first anyway. I really have no idea if it makes sense at all if you are not familiar with the franchise, and it’s intended for older readers who aren’t going to be given months of nightmares from some of the images in the book. Bill is known for being chaotic and gross, and S&P isn’t telling this book what to do, unlike the TV show. There is an unreality aspect to it that might freak some mentally ill people out, but I really enjoyed the interactivity of the book. It’s far from a board book, but there’s parts where you’re encouraged to write in the book, place your hand on something, say some chants, “make” the next thing in the book happen. While I wouldn’t do it myself, I bet you can even cut out the Bill themed Valentine’s cards that are in the book. If you really wanted to.

As an addition to the growing lore of Gravity Falls, it’s fantastic. There’s things you learn that will be like “ow” and “oh my god” and “oh no” and “yessssss!” But again, if you don’t know anything about Gravity Falls, none of it will make sense, and you’ll get multiple spoilers for the TV show. It’s expecting its audience to already be familiar with the characters while introducing other characters who don’t really impact the story but inform Bill’s past and just how long he’s tried to enter our reality so he can party.

And I feel like I can’t say more about it without heading into spoiler territory. But it’s really engaging and fun to read. There’s so many jokes as well, so it’s really funny until it hurts. If you’re a Gravity Falls fan, you gotta read it, unless you’re under a certain age. I’m sure teenagers will get a kick out of it, but beyond that, I’m really not sure how young is too young for it. There’s blood, there’s . . . a lot of disturbing imagery involving teeth and other body parts. So read at your own risk.

Unrelated, but it looks like I’m back, baby! I’ll keep you posted on what’s going on from here on out.