Life is Strange: Welcome to Blackwell Academy Hardcover – Illustrated, October 9, 2018

As soon as I realized this was coming, I had to get it.First, in case it wasn't already clear, the book is purposely "distressed" in appearance. The scribbles, stickers, and coffee stains you see on the cover are part of the charm and not the sign of a defective product. In fact, the book itself is in pristine shape, like you'd expect from a brand-new, genuine high school yearbook: gloss on the hardcover, thick paper for the pages, that sort of thing. Has a decent amount of heft to it so don't drop it on your foot or you will regret life.One thing that I hope my photos show is this is a combination book. One side is the Blackwell Academy guidebook. Flip the book over and you'll find the other is the Arcadia Bay city guide. Maybe I missed it but the description didn't make that fact apparent.The Blackwell side forms about 1/3 of the overall contents. It reads precisely as a school guide book, talking about the history of the school, current staff members, current students (as of 2010, the date of the book's fictional publication), clubs, etc. It does a good job filling in some blanks that fans may have noticed in the game about the school itself. How much of this is considered canon, though, is unknown.The Arcadia Bay side is much shorter, estimated about 1/5 of the overall page count. Several pages are dedicated to ads to local businesses and nearby attractions, again, just like you'd expect a town guide trying to up-sell itself. Some of these places might actually be pulled from real-world locations. I haven't done the research to confirm this yet.There is a large middle section that is more of an artbook for the Life Is Strange game itself. It's pretty much Max Caulfield's scrapbook of various photos she's taken around town.As the product description states, the entire book has been vandalized by various characters from both Life Is Strange and Before the Storm in the form of pithy and irreverent commentary. Most of these are in the form of back and forths between Chloe Price and Max but others make an appearance as well, such as Victoria Chase, Nathan Prescott, and Rachel Amber. Each individual has different "handwriting" (fonts) to differentiate them from one another. They're also in different colors but, as I'm colorblind, that detail is kind of lost on me.Overall, great product, great for fic writers and others who want more details to either use or ignore. I plan on utilizing it in this capacity and have no qualms admitting it in this product review. Regardless of why you want to buy this, it's an excellent collector's item and money well-spent.

Everything about this book is amazing from the pictures to details. The notes from the characters (Max, Chloe, Rachel, Victoria, & Nathan) are fun to read as well. If you like the game "Life is Strange" I highly recommend buying this book.

This is a fun little read through some of our favorite and not so favorite characters minds on the topics of blackwell academy and Arcadia Bay as well. Some of it was a little confusing with the Rachel Amber bits and Chloe but otherwise it was wonderful and brought me right back into the games LiS and before the storm.I'm probably romanticizing all of it but I think it would have been more enjoyable to live in this little fictional town planning my escape as a youth than where I grew up. But that's what games, books and media are for. Saving us from the mundanity of our own lives.I wish I could have played the games for the first time all over again, Ever emotional pull and plot twist. But this brought back some of that euphoria and that's all I could ask of it. I'll pluck it off the shelf now and then for the memories made and experienced through the games, this book and the comics. I love it all.

Gran adquisición si eres fan de LiS

My 5-star rating is for the book content and design itself. If I wanted to rate the problems I had, it would get negative 20 stars.I wasn't sure what to expect, as some reviews on Amazon and others elsewhere kind of contradict each other. If you're not a hardcore fan like I am, you probably won't appreciate this nearly as much. It's kind of hard to describe...Depending on which side you open it from (each side is reversible with its own content), this is basically a mix of a what might be a booklet sent to students interested in applying to Blackwell Academy, a diary filled with many unique pictures from and about the first 2 games, a yearbook, and something that might be given to students on their first day at the academy to give them current and historical backgrounds of Arcadia Bay. All of them contain scribbles and comments from Chloe, Max, Rachel, and others, some making fun of students and teachers and the such. The rubbing and stains on the pages are all supposed to be there, to make it look like it's been been abused, so don't worry about that.And now to the problems I had - This is my second copy, as I had to replace the original one the day I got it. As you can see from my pictures, the first one I received was EXTREMELY damaged, with both covers almost ripped off at the spines and the edges were extremely warped. Also, it was obviously pre-owned, because the white strap going around the book had been cut. Worst of all, someone tried to rewrap it and failed. The shrink wrap didn't go all the way around it, the book was well protected during shipping, and the shipping package itself wasn't damaged at all, so that definitely confirmed it.Apparently, this isn't the only time this has happened with this book. An earlier post here shows how theirs looks like it had been dumped in water before shipping, and other places that have sold this item have reported similar problems. Obviously, this company's quality control is quite lacking.Despite the problems I had, it's still a truly unique book, and very well priced for a hardcover! If you're crazy about Life Is Strange, then you will LOVE this!!!

The only real critique I could have is that the corners of the book are a bit damaged, but it adds to the used book vibe... From what I've read in other reviews that's pretty common so if that's not a put off for you, totally worth it to buy this!