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3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
I liked the characters, but there was more room for them to grow. A lot of attention was taken away from their development to make more room for the massive amounts of info dumping
Every character has little disection labels poking at them that tell you things about their fears, their hopes, their loves, but also includes unnecessary things like if their right or left hand dominant or if they have a mole on their back you can't see and has nothing to do with the plot. If a character speaks at all, even just one throw away line, they have four to five labels surrounding them. Some characters who don't speak or appear more than once get that treatment. I do not care that the manager of the bowling alley is right handed. It doesn't matter to the story at all. The bowling manager didn't even need a speaking line! Every single character has a labeled dominant hand. Such a waste of text. At first those little labels seem like endearing pieces of worldbuilding, but it quickly starts to overwhelm pages and add information that is not needed in the slightest
The art style was cute. It had a Zine type feel that I enjoyed. The color pallette was consistent and it was easy to tell characters apart
I answered no to the strong character development question because it feels like it all happens right at the end. I can't say much without spoilers, but I found the ending rushed and unsatisfying
Graphic: Body shaming, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Religious bigotry, Toxic friendship
Woo boy, this book did not meet my expectations at all.
Rating is a star and a half because I did enjoy the art and narration style (which info-dumped a lot).
The authors inserted quite a few subplots that never went anywhere:
Spoiler
Carol, Hank, Jason ew, Whitney, Catherine Holling, Jerry Kingpin's Bowl-o-rama.There's a lot to unpack and I haven't even mentioned the main plot and characters yet. I want to hug them! The religious trauma they have is so sad and not fair at all.
They're girls who still need to grow up and I wish they could be supported better just ugh. They aren't good at friendships, relationships, knowing they're being taken advantage of, etc because they are still children. (Another point made by the authors I think).
I wish the bootleg DVDs they were selling was something fun! A stand against censorship or something! Not pointless racy films for boys to jerk off to so the girls can get money for cool jackets. Give them Sailor Moon or... anything else please.
Art was nice, the color palette worked most of the time (thinking about those pants being the same color as her skin). The panels were placed beautifully, and I did like the one author's essay at the end about creating stories.
The story ended too soon, and in the middle of the climax. The girls didn't receive much growth
Spoiler
and they just split up at the end. No discussion about one of the girls cheating on her girlfriend they just... there's nothing! Big reveal and than nothing! Where's the heartbreak and learning what steps to take? Maggie has an eating disorder and no one talks about it! I'm stressed out because I don't know if she'll be alright. Also with her mom who is also cheating but never discussed just aughh.Gist: One and a half stars. Nice art but story was cut too soon and full of holes. The characters needed more growth... and Hank just really needs a hug.
I still really love the premise of this, but the execution left me wanting more. The multiple bubbles to describe characters, even minor ones, was distracting and tedious. Between chapters there would be full pages of text with backstory on characters. I would have rather seen this in flashbacks than blurbs of text. It just didn't work.
At times there were side characters that needed to be involved in the story more or less. The amount of time they were given didn't' flow with the story and seemed unnecessary. It made me think of all the characters you would see in a teen movie like Can't Harldy Wait or something, which is fine. Except that it's done better in movies like that with short snippets of the characters and their role in the whole story. Here, it seemed like, what was the point?
An interesting premise, but I'd like to see it done better.
