Thursday, September 6, 2018

This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki

genre: young adult graphic novel

Rose has spent every summer of her memory in a beach house so familiar it's like home.  She's even got a best friend, Windy, who does the same thing and is a constant presence during her beachy months.  But Rose is a teenager now, and the things that used to be the best part of the beach now seem less fun than imaging what her body will look like when she gets older or figuring out what all the teenagers are talking about at the tiny store in town.  This One Summer is a summer of transition, of becoming old enough to understand why adults can be in pain and old enough to start feeling real frustration about your not-adult-but-not-a-child place in the world.

The art is so well done - while monochromatic, it's still vibrant and alive with Rose's experiences as well as her memories.  But the story left me feeling pretty blah, which made me sad.  There is a lot of pain here, a lot of drama - and while I BELIEVE it, and it does feel absolutely grounded in the kind of experiences I remember having at this in-between age, I still wanted a reason to like Rose and care about her story.  She's moody and often unkind to her friend without things ever being super resolved.  I think teens would probably like it more because it will feel more familiar, maybe?  But the language is ROUGH and there is some content too (no nudity but a lot of crass talk about sex) that would make me hesitate to hand it to a young teen. 

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