Adult Coloring Book Reviews
In-depth, honest reviews covering paper quality, binding, design style, and difficulty level — so you can choose with confidence.
I’ve been collecting and reviewing adult coloring books since 2016, and this is where you’ll find all my honest assessments. Whether you’re buying your first coloring book or adding to an already-impressive shelf, the reviews here will help you make the right call.
Each review is based on my own experience coloring from the book — not just flipping through the pages. I look at how it actually performs with the media I use every day.
What Is an Adult Coloring Book?
An adult coloring book is a book of pre-drawn illustrations — usually more detailed than a children’s coloring book — made for adults to fill in with colored pencils, markers, or gel pens, purely for relaxation and creative enjoyment rather than skill-building toward original art. If you’re brand new to the hobby entirely, our Getting Started guide covers the basics before you even pick a book.
Coloring books aren’t all the same, and knowing the main styles by name makes the reviews below much easier to make sense of:
- Grayscale — shaded black-and-white line art, designed to be colored to look almost photorealistic when finished.
- Mandala / Pattern — repeating geometric or symmetrical designs, often used for a meditative, rhythmic coloring session.
- Mosaic / Color-by-Number — sections numbered or coded to a specific color, taking the guesswork out of the color scheme.
- Traditional Line Art — classic uncolored outline illustrations, the most open-ended style with no shading guide built in.
- Large-Print / Bold-Line — thicker outlines and simpler shapes, easier on the eyes and forgiving for anyone newer to coloring.
The covers all look similar enough that the actual difference — how much time a page takes, how fine the details are, how much pressure control you need — doesn’t show up until you’re a few pages in and already frustrated. If you want the full breakdown of which style actually suits your skill level and mood,
If you want the full breakdown of which style actually suits your skill level and mood, see our complete guide to adult coloring book styles →
Once you know the styles, the next thing to check is the physical details — paper weight, binding, page format, and size — so you don’t end up with a book your markers bleed straight through. Every book reviewed below already reports on all four, right in the “Each Review Covers” list below. Not sure which of your own pencils, markers, or gel pens pairs best with a given paper weight? Our coloring supplies guide breaks that down media by media.
What’s in every review
Each Review Covers:
- Artist & Publisher
- Book Dimensions — trim size affects how much detail you can see at once and how easily the book travels
- Quality of Paper — paper weight (gsm) determines whether markers bleed through or colored pencils glide cleanly
- Single or Double Sided Print — affects whether wet media bleeds through to the design on the next page
- Intricacy of Design
- Types of Pictures
- Binding — affects whether the book lies flat enough to color into comfortably near the spine
- Notable Aspects
- Pros and Cons
- Where to Purchase
- Recommendations
- Colored page samples
- Links to Other Reviews (if available)
Book Reviews
Books I Personally Recommend
Every book in this list I’ve colored from personally — these are my most-reached-for titles and the ones I recommend most often when someone asks where to start or what to try next. You’ll find full reviews for each one above.
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View on Amazon$9.34We earn commission if you make a purchase at no additional cost to you. See Disclosure Statement for further details....
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View on Amazon$9.39We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you. See Disclosure Statement.