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3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
The art style was gorgeous and I like how it had parts where it gave more about the characters but the ending was entirely just ?!? and the plot was just ?!?
dark
emotional
funny
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
lighthearted
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
Really surprised by the low ratings. I don’t think it was misleading and I liked the drama and sad ending. Graphic novels for middle grade and YA tend to have a happy ending 9 out of 10 times. I also thought it was more realistic, since not everything is girl power of accepting yourself in real life.
adventurous
challenging
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I liked the premise of this graphic novel, but there was a lot about the execution that was not for me.
There's kind of a lot going on in this story, which feels overwhelming at times. There's a lot of characters who only appear once or twice (yet they're all named and we get some background info on them), plus there's all of the information about the town, and then there's the plot itself. Visually, this is a very text heavy graphic novel. Most of the information we get about the characters and the town comes from little textboxes or the occasional mostly-text full page interjection. It makes a lot of the pages feel very cluttered and dense, and it's hard to know where to focus, because it's hard to tell what's important. I feel like the writers should have gone through the pages on last time and looked for details to trim, because not all of them were necessary (like the fact that we know which characters are right or left handed. I thought that would lead somewhere eventually, but it did not).
The art is lovely though, and I really liked all of the character designs. I can't say the same about the characters themselves, but they did have their moments. What I didn't like about them is partly a me-thing (this is mostly about how I find Maggie's personality very grating). And I do understand why they're all the way they are and I feel like their motivations make sense, which is arguably more important than "likeability".
I was also not a fan of the ending, but I think that is largely because of where my headspace is right now. It was not what I expected based on the description and I was really hoping for something different. That, combined with how I've been feeling lately (thank you, depressing darkness of December), meant that I Did Not vibe with it. But from a story standpoint, I can see how it works.
[Additional content notes: this is set in the mid-2000s and boy does it feel like it. The time period, combined with the very Christian town/boarding school setting, means that the homophobia is very There. There's a scene where "the only out gay kid" in the school gets beat up in the hallway and no one says or does anything until after the bully has left. One of the girls gets told by her teacher that "some kinds of love are wrong", with the clear implication that the teacher knows the girl is gay. There are several slurs used throughout the story. I definitely forgot that the 2000s were Like That, so this was a lot more than I was expecting.
The eating disorder tag refers mostly to the end, where it's implied that a character is developing/has developed one, but it's not very present.
The adult/minor relationship and pedophilia thing comes up very briefly on three separate occasions. One of them involves a youth group leader, who shows up for one scene. The other two are allusions to characters we never meet.
There's an off-screen, before the book starts suicide, which kind of affects one of the main characters, but it's not really talked about, past the first time it comes up - and that isn't very detailed.]
There's kind of a lot going on in this story, which feels overwhelming at times. There's a lot of characters who only appear once or twice (yet they're all named and we get some background info on them), plus there's all of the information about the town, and then there's the plot itself. Visually, this is a very text heavy graphic novel. Most of the information we get about the characters and the town comes from little textboxes or the occasional mostly-text full page interjection. It makes a lot of the pages feel very cluttered and dense, and it's hard to know where to focus, because it's hard to tell what's important. I feel like the writers should have gone through the pages on last time and looked for details to trim, because not all of them were necessary (like the fact that we know which characters are right or left handed. I thought that would lead somewhere eventually, but it did not).
The art is lovely though, and I really liked all of the character designs. I can't say the same about the characters themselves, but they did have their moments. What I didn't like about them is partly a me-thing (this is mostly about how I find Maggie's personality very grating). And I do understand why they're all the way they are and I feel like their motivations make sense, which is arguably more important than "likeability".
I was also not a fan of the ending, but I think that is largely because of where my headspace is right now. It was not what I expected based on the description and I was really hoping for something different. That, combined with how I've been feeling lately (thank you, depressing darkness of December), meant that I Did Not vibe with it. But from a story standpoint, I can see how it works.
[Additional content notes: this is set in the mid-2000s and boy does it feel like it. The time period, combined with the very Christian town/boarding school setting, means that the homophobia is very There. There's a scene where "the only out gay kid" in the school gets beat up in the hallway and no one says or does anything until after the bully has left. One of the girls gets told by her teacher that "some kinds of love are wrong", with the clear implication that the teacher knows the girl is gay. There are several slurs used throughout the story. I definitely forgot that the 2000s were Like That, so this was a lot more than I was expecting.
The eating disorder tag refers mostly to the end, where it's implied that a character is developing/has developed one, but it's not very present.
The adult/minor relationship and pedophilia thing comes up very briefly on three separate occasions. One of them involves a youth group leader, who shows up for one scene. The other two are allusions to characters we never meet.
There's an off-screen, before the book starts suicide, which kind of affects one of the main characters, but it's not really talked about, past the first time it comes up - and that isn't very detailed.]
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying
Moderate: Body shaming, Cursing, Hate crime, Homophobia, Racism, Sexual content, Lesbophobia
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Drug use, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Pedophilia, Suicide, Alcohol
I'm very conflicted about this one. I liked the premise. It was funny. But there were also some throwaway lines that bothered me. And the ending was deeply unsatisfying, which I understand and it kind of works, but is still very frustrating.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This YA graphic novel had a lot of potential that it didn't live up to, sadly. There was too much explaining what was going on rather than showing it, the ending was rushed and weirdly pessimistic, and I felt like I never really got a handle on the characters. The events that should have had emotional weight and impact just didn't. I liked the art though, and the concept of these teen girls accidentally stumbling into selling sexy anime DVDs.