Nick and Charlie have survived the uncertainty of the crush. They now know how they feel about each other and are officially boyfriends. That should make everything easier., but instead, volume three turns its attention to what happens once the relationship is real and other people begin to notice.
Alice Oseman sends the boys and their friends to Paris for a school trip filled with sightseeing, birthday celebrations, romantic tension and very little privacy. It's an ideal setting for a young romance, and it's also the place where the problems they've been quietly carrying become harder to hide.
Nick is still deciding who to tell that he's bisexual, and Charlie is worried about admitting to Tao that they're together. Tao and Elle are circling feelings neither of them has properly named., and Tara and Darcy are comfortably established as a couple. The teachers supervising the trip appear to have noticed each other too.
There's a lot happening around Nick and Charlie in this volume. Some of it adds warmth and breadth to their world, but some of it leaves the book feeling as though every available character is being steered towards a romantic pairing.
Paris brings the entire group into close quarters. Nick and Charlie want time alone but they're sharing rooms, travelling in groups, and constantly surrounded by classmates. Their relationship becomes a lot harder to hide.
A conspicuous love bite on Charlie’s neck turns that tension into humour. It's an affectionate mark left during a private moment but it becomes visible evidence of something they haven't yet chosen to share with everyone.
The Paris setting is pleasant and lively but it sometimes feels more like a backdrop for conversations than an essential part of the story. The school-trip structure provides parties, hotel rooms, and shifting friendship groups, but the volume remains more interested in the emotional exchanges than place itself.
That approach suits the intimacy of Heartstopper in general, and itt also means that a book of almost four hundred pages can pass surprisingly fast without delivering the narrative weight its length might suggest.
Oseman’s black-and-white illustrations remain clean, expressive, and readable. Small changes in posture and facial expression communicate embarrassment, affection, and anxiety without needing any lengthy explanations.
The recurring leaves and flowers give emotional movement to the open spaces around the panels, and make feelings visible, helping create the softness readers associate with the series.
But that clarity is both a strength and a limitation, because the artwork rarely leaves much room for interpretation. The dialogue explains the emotion while the facial expressions and decorative symbols reinforce it. Readers are rarely asked to sit with uncertainty or discover a meaning that the characters can't name.
The minimal backgrounds also make the story extremely fast to read. The pages are attractive and the expressions are effective, but the visual world can feel less developed than the emotional one.
Heartstopper Volume Three marks an important change in Nick and Charlie’s story. The excitement of getting together starts to give way to the harder work of being known. Nick has to navigate repeated acts of coming out while Charlie’s carefully hidden distress starts breaking through the surface.
There's still lots of sweetness here. The Paris trip is charming and the affection between the characters stays sincere. Oseman continues to offer queer teenagers a vision of love built on patience, consent, and mutual respect.
The book is less successful when it tries to give every member of the growing ensemble a romantic storyline. The emotional language can feel overly polished and the spare visual style makes a substantial book feel surprisingly slight. Charlie’s mental-health storyline carries weight but ends at the point where deeper examination is needed.
I am growing incredibly fond of Nick and Charlie and I understand why this series means so much to its readers. This instalment is warm, compassionate, and easy to read, but it also feels more like a bridge between the early romance and the difficult material ahead than a fully satisfying story in its own right.
🌈 Read this if you enjoy tender LGBTQIA+ coming-of-age stories
🗼 A school trip to Paris filled with romance and complications
💬 Coming out repeatedly to friends and family
💞 Established couples facing deeper feelings and new pressures
🫶 Queer friendship, supportive adults and emotional safety
🌱 First love complicated by hidden mental-health struggles
⚠️ Contains disordered eating, fainting, homophobia, bullying and references to past self-harm
Book Details
Heartstopper Volume 3 by Alice Oseman
Paperback ISBN
978-1444952773 — Hodder Children’s Books trade paperback edition published in Australia on 11 February 2020.
Hardcover ISBN
978-1444972450 — Hodder Children’s Books special-edition hardcover published in Australia on 8 August 2023.
eBook ISBN
978-1444952780 — Hodder Children’s Books digital eBook edition published on 6 February 2020.
Audiobook ISBN
N/A — no audiobook edition is currently listed because Heartstopper: Volume Three is a visually driven graphic novel.
Genre
Graphic Novel; Young Adult Fiction; LGBTQIA+ Fiction; Contemporary Fiction; Romance; Coming-of-Age Fiction; School Fiction
Subgenre
LGBTQIA+ Graphic Novel; Queer Romance; Bisexual Coming-of-Age Fiction; First-Love Fiction; British School Fiction; Mental-Health Fiction; Illustrated Fiction; Webcomic Adaptation; Young Adult Contemporary Romance
Tropes / Literary Threads
Established relationship; secret relationship; school trip to Paris; bisexual identity and repeated coming out; first love becoming more serious; relationship concealed for safety; friends becoming lovers; protective love interest; emotionally distant parent.
Publisher
Hachette Children’s Group under the Hodder Children’s Books imprint — the trade paperback and eBook editions were published in 2020, followed by the special-edition hardcover in 2023.
Series
Heartstopper — Volume Three and the third book in Alice Oseman’s continuing graphic-novel series.
Formats Available
Trade Paperback; Special-Edition Hardcover; eBook; Kindle; EPUB; Online Webcomic.
Audiobook Narrator
N/A — no audiobook edition is currently available.
Audiobook Length
N/A — the story is presented visually as a graphic novel and has not been released as an audiobook.
Original Release Date
6 February 2020 — commercially published in the United Kingdom by Hachette Children’s Group after first appearing as Chapter Four of Alice Oseman’s online webcomic.
Australian Release Date
11 February 2020 — Hodder Children’s Books trade paperback edition distributed by Hachette Australia.
Page Count
384 pages — Hodder Children’s Books trade paperback edition.
Where to Buy Heartstopper Volume 3 by Alice Oseman
📚 Amazon
Affiliate Disclosure
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. If you purchase through my Amazon affiliate links, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. I also encourage supporting Australian booksellers such as QBD Books, independent booksellers, and self-published authors whenever possible.
Danielle Robinson is a literary critic and writer whose
work explores literature through the
lens of atmosphere, memory, culture, and emotional experience. Holding a double degree in philosophy and theology, she combines academic insight with a deeply refined aesthetic sensibility shaped by more than three decades working across the creative industries as an internationally published, multi-award-winning makeup artist, fashion stylist, and interior stager.
She reads widely and rigorously, reading and reviewing more than 200 books each year as both an ARC reader and commissioned critic. Through Silk & Sentences, Danielle approaches literature as something immersive and lived with — not simply stories to consume, but works that shape the way we think, feel, and move through the world.
She writes from her semi-rural Queensland home, where she lives with Alex, her husband of 33 years, their dogs Oscar and Paige, and an ever-growing library of books.
Comments