I suppose those girls must exist, but my experience in school was that popular girls were popular because they were so well-liked, not because they were adept bullies, and that mean girls weren't popular outside their small cliques because they weren't likeable. The friendship between Juniper and her roommate, Cassie was really sweet and I love how they stood up for one another.

The characters are done so well, the evil snob, the sweet friend and Juniper, the tough scholarship girl out to prove herself. The beginning didn’t have me routing for either main character much but as you got to know them a bit better that changed. She (of course) catches the evil eye of a girl who is never really stated to be the most popular, though at least as concerns Jun’s story, the girl is far-away the most powerful. Through her steady hand, we come to like and appreciate these characters and it’s in their quiet, reflective moments that Hicks allows them to at least begin to transcend their form. Hicks does a great job of showing why Emily would be so set on maintaining status quo without going into preachy mode, and without giving her a too-good-to-be-true ending.

The colour palette is dark, with lots of brown and green (their uniforms and the style of the old building) but her characters jump off the page. Within census records, you can often find information like name of household members, ages, birthplaces, residences, and occupations.

A really interesting graphic novel with a hint of fantasy that delves into issues of ambition, kindness, memory, and what competition does to you. She has once again managed to bring out the feelings of isolation of the main character but does so in a way where the character does not come across as weak.

Authors aiming to interest nascent adults need drum up narrative conflicts with which these readers will be acquainted—and let’s be honest, the well of experienced conflicts will run a lot deeper for grown-ups than it will for nearly any fourteen-year-old. Both in this book and the one I read before (Friends With Boys), she manages to steal the spotlight from the MC with her outcasted characters.

An enjoyable story about a girl who enters a boarding school and realizes she has more in common with the girls there than she anticipated. A very warm welcome from Paula and Steve, once again, the room was fabulous (we stayed in Daisy), beautiful bedding, soft, fluffy towels, and a shower cubicle straight out of the star ship Enterprise :).I was surprised by the thing in the woods; it was not at all what I thought it would be and I was left nonplussed.

First off, One Year at Ellsmere, the new and improved version of an older graphic novel that was published years ago under the title The War at Ellsmere, is out now from First Second Books!No, not because it was an agonizing read, but rather because it was so short and shiz that I had to take a good five seconds after I read it to really comprehend what I just read.