Moving on in the series, volume four takes us beyond Nick and Charlie's nervous exchanges and affection into much more complicated territory.
Charlie’s relationship with food has become increasingly concerning. Nick's noticed the meals avoided, the excuses offered and the distress Charlie tries to conceal, but recognising that something's wrong doesn't mean knowing what to do about it. As summer gives way to autumn, the romantic anticipation surrounding those first declarations of love becomes inseparable from the difficult question of how to support someone you love when they need more help than you can provide?
This is the point at which Heartstopper moves beyond the first exhilaration of Nick and Charlie becoming a couple. Their relationship has stopped being tested primarily by secrecy, uncertainty or the reactions of other people. Instead, both of the boys have to confront the limits of what a romantic relationship can carry.
Volume Four is much heavier than its predecessors. Charlie’s restrictive eating deteriorates, his mental health reaches a crisis point and he eventually receives treatment for anorexia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The story also contains references to self-harm, psychiatric hospitalisation, trauma and the continuing consequences of the bullying Charlie experienced at school.
Oseman approaches these subjects with obvious care. Charlie’s illness isn't presented as a dramatic twist or a temporary obstacle placed between the central couple. Nor is it reduced to dissatisfaction with his appearance. His eating disorder is connected to anxiety, intrusive thoughts, control, and the psychological damage left by extensive bullying.
This matters because Charlie isn't simply refusing food because he wants to look different. Restriction has become tangled with his need to control something in a life that's repeatedly made him feel powerless.
This volume is also careful not to suggest that being loved by Nick should be enough to make Charlie well. Nick can notice what's happening. He can listen, encourage Charlie to speak to his parents and remain beside him during recovery, but what he can't do is become Charlie’s doctor, therapist or his sole reason for staying alive.
That might be the most important idea in the entire book.
My difficulty with Volume Four isn't its darker subject matter. The shift towards mental illness feels necessary and has been touched on across the earlier books. My reservation is with how much of Charlie’s crisis is recounted after it's happened.
Large portions of his deterioration, hospitalisation and early treatment are delivered to us through journal entries and retrospective summaries. This allows the book to cover several months without turning Charlie’s suffering into spectacle, and I understand the sensitivity behind that decision. But it also creates an unexpected emotional distance because we're told what happened, and we understand that it was frightening, and how deeply Nick was affected. Yet some of the most consequential events in the story pass by in compressed form rather than unfolding fully before us.
The journals provide access to both boys’ perspectives, but they occasionally feel more explanatory than immersive. At the precise point when Charlie’s internal experience should become the emotional core of the book, the narrative sometimes reads like a summary of the scenes that have occurred somewhere else.
That restraint might make the story safer and more accessible for younger readers, but it also prevents some moments from having the dramatic weight they could otherwise have possessed.
The mental-health guidance throughout the volume is compassionate and responsible, but there are occasions when the characters appear to be speaking as much to the reader as to one another.
Conversations about symptoms, treatment, caregiving and recovery sometimes carry the deliberate clarity of educational material. The information is valuable, particularly for younger readers who might never have discovered these ideas before, but as dialogue, it can feel unusually polished and purposeful.
Nick is also so consistently patient, perceptive and emotionally articulate that he occasionally appears less like an overwhelmed teenager than an ideal model of supportive partnership. He worries and makes mistakes, but his mistakes are rarely selfish or seriously damaging.
His kindness is central to the appeal of the series, and I'd never want cynicism introduced merely to manufacture conflict. But I think that a little more adolescent awkwardness, frustration or emotional contradiction could have made his struggle feel more human.
Oseman’s monochrome illustrations continue to communicate emotion through deceptively simple details. A lowered head, an untouched plate, a hesitant hand or the physical space between two characters frequently says more than the dialogue.
The recurring leaves remain one of the series’ most recognisable visual motifs. Here they accompany a genuine transition. Summer warmth gives way to autumn and winter as the story enters a more difficult stage. The change of season reflects the loss of the relative innocence that characterised the beginning of Nick and Charlie’s relationship.
Food also becomes a powerful and unsettling symbol. Meals should represent family, friendship and ordinary pleasure, but for Charlie they become moments of fear and observation. Every unfinished plate risks revealing something he's not yet ready to explain.
Nellie and the newly arrived Henry provide a welcome counterpoint. The dogs represent uncomplicated companionship and comfort that requires no diagnosis, explanation or perfectly chosen words.
Heartstopper: Volume Four is an honest and compassionate book with an important understanding of what love can and can't do.
Its portrayal of eating disorders and recovery is accessible without being flippant. It encourages young people to involve trusted adults, seek professional support and recognise that relapse doesn't erase progress. Most importantly, it doesn't place responsibility for Charlie’s survival entirely upon another teenager.
I admired those choices enormously.
But as a reading experience, I was more intellectually appreciative than emotionally overwhelmed. The journal structure compresses many of the events I most wanted to experience alongside Charlie, and the dialogue occasionally moves from natural conversation into instruction, while the supporting characters step back just when a broader view of Charlie’s relationships could have added greater texture.
There's certainly still tenderness here, with the affectionate messages, nervous confessions, protective siblings, understanding parents and the two adorably supportive dogs dogs. Nick and Charlie remain easy to care about, and Oseman’s commitment to creating a hopeful queer story remains clearly apparent.
Volume Four takes the series into necessary territory, but its caution sometimes keeps the reader at the edge of Charlie’s experience rather than fully immersed in it. It's thoughtful, responsible and undoubtedly meaningful to many readers even if, for me, the importance of what it says ultimately proved stronger than the way it was told.
🌈 Read this if you enjoy tender LGBTQIA+ coming-of-age stories
💞 First love tested by illness and time apart
🫶 Partners learning the limits of emotional support
🏥 Seeking professional help and beginning recovery
👨👩👧 Supportive families, loyal friends and protective siblings
🌱 Mental-health struggles explored with care and hope
⚠️ Contains anorexia, OCD, psychiatric treatment and references to self-harm
Book Details
Heartstopper Volume 4 by Alice Oseman
Paperback ISBN
978-1444952797 — Hodder Children’s Books trade paperback edition published in Australia on 11 May 2021.
Hardcover ISBN
978-1444972467 — Hodder Children’s Books special-edition hardcover published in Australia on 12 October 2023.
eBook ISBN
978-1444952803 — Hodder Children’s Books digital eBook edition published on 6 May 2021.
Audiobook ISBN
N/A — no audiobook edition is currently listed because Heartstopper: Volume Four is a visually driven graphic novel.
Genre
Graphic Novel; Young Adult Fiction; LGBTQIA+ Fiction; Contemporary Fiction; Romance; Coming-of-Age Fiction; Mental-Health Fiction; School Fiction
Subgenre
LGBTQIA+ Graphic Novel; Queer Romance; Bisexual Coming-of-Age Fiction; First-Love Fiction; British School Fiction; Eating-Disorder Fiction; Recovery Fiction; Illustrated Fiction; Webcomic Adaptation; Young Adult Contemporary Romance
Tropes / Literary Threads
Established relationship; first declarations of love; first love tested by illness; supportive partner learning healthy boundaries; love cannot cure mental illness; eating-disorder recovery; psychiatric treatment; time apart; protective sibling; absent father.
Publisher
Hachette Children’s Group under the Hodder Children’s Books imprint — the trade paperback and eBook editions were published in 2021, followed by the special-edition hardcover in 2023.
Series
Heartstopper — Volume Four and the fourth 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 May 2021 — commercially published in the United Kingdom by Hachette Children’s Group after first appearing as Chapters Five and Six of Alice Oseman’s online webcomic.
Australian Release Date
11 May 2021 — 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 4 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.
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