Name: Friends with Boys
ISBN: 9781596435568

Faith Erin Hicks

After an idyllic childhood of homeschooling with her mother and three older brothers, Maggie McKay enrolls in public high school, where interacting with her peers is complicated by the melancholy ghost that has followed her throughout her entire life. Original.

Friends with Boys

A coming-of-age tale with a spooky twist! Maggie McKay hardly knows what to do with herself. After an idyllic childhood of homeschooling with her mother and rough-housing with her older brothers, it's time for Maggie to face the outside world, all on her own. But that means facing high school first. And it also means solving the mystery of the melancholy ghost who has silently followed Maggie throughout her entire life. Maybe it even means making a new friend--one who isn't one of her brothers. Funny, surprising, and tender, Friends with Boys is a pitch perfect YA graphic novel full of spooky supernatural fun.

The ghost angle seemed kind of nothingburger? Everything else was great

Jonnie

mary

4⭐
I really liked this book.I want more.Lucy is such a cutie

Amanda Kordeliski

*******spoilers********

This story has a great beginning and storyline but it has no resolution. I hope it is the beginning of a series and the story arc completes itself. Maggie does not resolve any of her issues by the end of the book. Where did her mother go and why? Why is the ghost following her? Too many unresolved issues.

Camila Eduarda Vilela Lobianco

78%

(English is not my first language, so, please, tell me if has any mistakes so that I can learn with them).

Plot
This is a graphic novel that was homeschooled and now is going to study in a public school. So, she actually don’t have any friends and always hung out just with her brothers, that are three in total. Her mother just abandoned them and her brothers are too busy with their own problems to help her get through all of this.
This comic portraits bullying from a outside view and brings something new and different about this discussion.

Execution
It’s pretty well done. Her friendships, the way that she has to adapt to this new environment with lots of people and not just her family, it’s all really realistic. I loved how the author showed that not always you’re going to be the best brother possible and how sometimes people can be selfish.
Although, something that I really didn’t like is that hole ghost thing. I mean, it doesn’t add anything and also didn’t made any sense to me, so I really believe that it was pretty unnecessary.

Characters
Maggie is pretty cute and I loved her brothers, but unfortunately they didn’t showed up as much as I wished.
But the star of this part is SURELY Lucy. She’s so nice, so cute and so happy that she made me smile through the hole book. I love it, she’s one of the best comic characters that I ever saw.

Design
Different, but pretty well done. She doesn’t romanticise the appearance of the characters, like some comics do, making they look real, the kind of people that you could see everywhere. Something that I also liked is like all of them are really different from each other, even the twins.

Friendship and brotherhood
Cute, I loved Alistair, Lucy and Maggie friendship, how they are always there to each other. Also I loved how the brothers seem realistic and their relationship is well portrayed.

Representation
It doesn’t has much, it could have a lot more, but has some.

Caroline Lewicki

An okay graphic novel. It felt really unresolved and I don’t think the title really ties in to the book. I didn’t really feel anything for any of these characters and didn’t really care about what happened to them. I liked the idea of the story but the execution just fell flat.

Silje Risøy Helgerud

2,5. I thought the art was cute and charming, however I feeI I've already read this story many times. It didn't add anything new. The dialogue felt forced, not sincere and a bit pretentious.
Still it has its moments, but not enough to make me enjoy this book.

b.andherbooks

Gentle, sweet story about a girl starting "real" school in the 9th grade, her motley crew of brothers, and trying to figure out where she fits in. There is also a ghost.

Chris

Friends with boys is black and white graphic novel about Maggie who is starting high school. On the way she passes a graveyard where she meets up with a ghost who she met when she was young. I love a ghost story, but this story is light on the ghosts. The art is very distinct, which I appreciate, and this is a clever coming of age story.

This book is similar to many graphic novels in that I feel there is too much text. Since this is a visual medium, I would think the images to carry most of the story. When the ghost is around the images are forefront, but in the school and with her friends, there is too much talking. I find the dialogue difficult to read.

Other than that, this is a fun story for fans of Faith Erin Hicks.

Jessica Nottingham

Can I please proclaim my love for Friends With Boys? It has been a long while since I had the pleasure of diving into a graphic novel, and so I'm happy to say that Faith Erin Hicks satisfied my every bookish need. What you'll find between these pages is the perfect mixture of sweet, spooky, and downright funny. New to the world of graphic novels? This is a great place to start!

What impressed me most about this story was the characters. They easily steal the show. Faith Erin Hicks brings to life a quirky family who I would be happy to meet in real life. Maggie is the youngest of four and all her siblings are, you guessed it, boys! Maggie's character is sweet and shy. Her brothers are all kind, boisterous characters who shine off the page. Their love for one another is evident, even as they have their normal sibling rivalries. Lucy and her brother Alistair are also deliciously different and realistic. There isn't a single character who outshines the others, and I adored that fact.

Faith Erin Hicks shows her prowess at creating emotion without words in Friends With Boys. With the use of gorgeously rendered facial expressions, Hicks allows the reader a glimpse at Maggie's emotions without blatantly spelling them out. This also allows the chance for a lot of open ended situations! There is a lot in this story that can be interpreted many different ways. I'm anxious to see if this will be a series, in huge part because there is so much that I still want to know.

There is a very mild supernatural element to this story. Mild enough that it doesn't overpower the story, but still present enough that it gives it a nice twist. If you are not one to read paranormal, fret not! The story line of this graphic novel contains much more than ghost stories. Friends With Boys is about growing up, finding out who you really want to be, and also the power of a loving family. In fact, there is so much to love here that I devoured this graphic novel in a mere half hour! Let's be honest, it's that good.

My one gripe? The ending! Ah. I won't spoil, but it definitely leaves a lot of things unanswered, which made me chomp at the bit for more. I'm in for the long haul. Maggie and her crew are welcome on my reading list any time!