Hope everyone has had a good weekend no matter if you celebrate America’s birthday or not. I’m not a huge fan of the celebrations myself, for various reasons. The fireworks also scare my many cats so I’m honestly glad it is all over. I spent most of the weekend cleaning and reading.
I received both of these books through NetGalley. These books were Dream On by Shannon Hale and Absolutely Everything by Damian Alexander. I enjoyed both of these books. Though I think having read Dream On, then right after reading Absolutely Everything, I can see the ways in which they are both very similar.
For starters, they are both graphic novels about girls dealing with friendship problems and social issues. While I’m not trying to lump all books like this together, these two have a remarkable number of similarities in the protagonists.
I’ll start first with addressing the protagonist of Dream On by Shannon Hale. Cassie is a girl from a large family who is trying to fit in with a new girl, her best friend, who is spending time with.
She is prone to being a bit of a creative with numerous flights of fancy. Her big imagination is the focus of the book; she believes she and her family have won a contest from a piece of mail that they received. She is looking not only to fit in with the new girl, but also for a way to stand out in her big family.
Meanwhile, the protagonist in Absolutely Everything is also dealing with issues of fitting in. She’s a little bit older than the girl in Dream On. Marcella is just starting middle school.
Her problems deal with fitting in when it comes to her friends liking boys and being caught up in school. She has trouble focusing on her school work and starts letting everything pile up around her as she gets depressed and feels hopeless about her brain not working the way she thinks it should.
Now, on the surface, these two books don’t sound too much alike, but they both deal with the girls’ inner lives at a particularly delicate period. This period is the end of elementary and the start of middle school.
These graphic novels focus on the rich inner lives of both Cassie and Marcella and the trouble that sometimes comes about from your life shifting as you grow up. Both Cassie and Marcella learn the importance of talking to their families. They also both learn to focus on not letting the others around them define their happiness. While Cassie learns to be more open about how she is feeling because of her friends. Marcella learns the importance of not letting things pile up.
These books show some of the many reasons I like middle grade fiction. I think they do a great job of getting inside the heads of young people and I would recommend them both with five stars. I loved the art and story for both of them and would happily read more by the authors.
Both these books release in the fall and I can’t wait to promote them more. Do you like reading middle grade book or graphic novels? Let me know in the comments below.
Happy Reading
Solara
Rose's Book Garden 