Jillian Tamaki

Every summer for as long as she can remember, Rose, her mom, and her dad head to a lake house at Awago Beach. It’s a refuge, a getaway, a chance to relax and recover from the stresses of the past year. And every summer Rose’s friend Windy and her family are there as well. Windy and Rose are like sisters and best friends. This year though...things have changed. Rose’s mom and dad just won’t stop fighting. Rose is growing up and beginning to notice the local boys and is interested in show more horror movies. And a couple of the local teens have an encounter that will change things for everyone. This is going to be a summer like no other.

This is one of those stories that is hard for me to write a review. Because I want to write so much about it, I want to tell you what happens, but I don’t want to spoil the story. And it’s also difficult, because the story is so realistic, so vivid, that I felt like I was reading Rose’s diary. It feels almost like an invasion of privacy, because the story is so well told that in just a few short sentences we can understand the swirl of emotions and drama and chaos that Rose is experiencing. Because we remember what it was like to go through that transition. We are no longer children, but we are not yet quite adults either. And it doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, we can all remember that time of struggle. Wondering what it’s like to be an adult, trying to be an adult, trying to figure out what love is and not make a fool out of ourselves. Mariko and Jillian have accurately captured the feelings of this age and make the reader feel like they're actually participants in what's going on, not just mere observers to the world.
I think what I like best about the story though, is that the dialogue feels real. It’s like we’ve stepped into a local school and we’re hearing teens from today talk about what’s going on in their lives. But we can also feel like we’re stepping back into time to the 90’s and the dialogue would still feel the same. So many authors struggle with trying to be real teens, it’s like they’ve forgotten what they were like and imagine that everyone talks in complete sentences. But not in this story. Here we have the broken sentences, half words, not real words, and everything in between.
The artwork for this story is absolutely gorgeous and breathtaking. The simple color palette of blue and white capture the emotion and intensity of the what's going on and have the characters leaping off the page into the real world. The blue and white also echo the idea of the lake and waves crashing against the shore nicely. It's that idea of swirling chaos and beauty that we see and feel when standing on the shore. The color palette also reflects the idea that we’re reading Rose’s diary or hearing her tell the story. Even more than that, it feels like we’re watching an old home movie, where the film has faded slightly, but we can still feel and be a part of the story.

The design of the characters though is my favorite aspect. There are no “perfect” bodies or super models. We see real people, real teens. Skinny, chubby, fat, slim, muscular, old, and everything in between. In other words real people. It isn’t something shows up often in young adult books, and I am so glad to see it here.
This is one of those books that I could give and recommend to so many different groups: to teen girls just at that age of childhood and adulthood with so much to look forward to and to fear; to women that want to remember what it felt like at that age--the first crush, the separation of childhood friends, of growing up; and to guys that just want to understand the depth and emotion that this age holds. I give this book 5 out of 5 stars and look forward to seeing what Mariko and Jillian do next.

ARC provided by Gina at First Second show less

Aquietly moving graphic novel explores a teen girl’s experience with friends, suicide, cliques and love. Both overweight and of mixed ethnicities, Kimberly Keiko Cameron—also known as “Skim” because “she’s not”—is slowly moving through high school with her best friend Lisa. Both sharply witty and incisive, the two girls dabble in various forms of self-expression and exploration, like dressing with Gothic flair and trying Wicca. The two girls come to an impasse when Lisa gets show more an unexpected chance to join the popular clique. Coupled with her tumultuous friendship, Skim also harbors a crush on a female teacher, which leads her to begin to question herself and her desires. Long, languid lines portray Skim’s turmoil and angst with pitch-perfect resonance and show how, for teens, time seems to be so drawn out. While Tamaki’s faces are sometimes unsettling, the reader has the distinct impression that they should be uncomfortable. Recommend this to fans of Daniel Clowes’s Ghost World, who have been waiting for another graphic novel of teen angst and suburban ennui. (Graphic novel. YA)

-Kirkus Review show less

A fairly decent anthology as long as you keep in mind that hardly any of this is the best of anything except alternative comics to which the publisher could wrangle reprint rights. No DC, Marvel, Image, Dark Horse here. No, Drawn & Quarterly and Koyama Press are the dominate publishers according to this.

Seriously, I read more than 500 graphic novels a year, and only 3 of the 25 excerpts were from books I had previously read.

At least there were fewer unreadable selections than in previous show more years, and the new-to-me Joe Sacco story was enough to make the whole book worthwhile. show less

What a charming graphic novel of the 2009 meetup of three women taking a weeklong break from college to explore New York City. The tension commences immediately because two, Zoe and Fiona, are meeting for the first time, and their locus is Dani, friends to both. We all know that trios never ever work out because one is always the third wheel, and as each personality emerges, the reader knows there's going to be trouble right away. Fiona is the most worldly, being familiar with the city and show more contemptuous of tourists like Zoe and Dani, and basically of everyone else in the world. She's the leader of the off-road adventures and doesn't want to spend time in museums. They land at a funky hostel where there are about 1000 rules that Fiona is intent on breaking. The drawings are gorgeous, so much so that the words seem almost superfluous at times, but it all works perfectly. A fantastic gift for anyone who is in that same phase of life, who remembers when, and anyone who still marvels at the entire world that is New York City. show less