Real Friends: Mean Girls for Tweens

From the publishers:

When best friends are not forever . . .

Shannon and Adrienne have been best friends ever since they were little. But one day, Adrienne starts hanging out with Jen, the most popular girl in class and the leader of a circle of friends called The Group. Everyone in The Group wants to be Jen's #1, and some girls would do anything to stay on top . . . even if it means bullying others.

Now every day is like a roller coaster for Shannon. Will she and Adrienne stay friends? Can she stand up for herself? And is she in The Group—or out?

Newbery Honor author Shannon Hale and New York Times bestselling illustrator LeUyen Pham join forces in this graphic memoir about how hard it is to find your real friends—and why it's worth the journey.

My thoughts:

The pairing of words by Shannon Hale and illustrations by LeUyen Pham gives this novel that awkward, lonely, confused feeling that dredges up my own tween years when my own friendships started to change and drift away and I was left a little confused by my changing hormones, and the way I was very out of sync with my childhood best friend based on the rate of our maturity. This is a kinder, gentler Mean Girls, but it brings up emotions that all these years later still can come back through this book. 

In the Author's Note section Hale says she never thought she would write a memoir, but in some ways it is. The honesty and truth of this and the illustrations that are able to deftly illustrate awkward, confused and unsure states just in the character Shannon's face created an emotional roller coaster of a ride for me. 

This book is for those upper elementary girls who feel lost and misunderstood and abandoned and confused. The creators have a message. Things do get better. 

Publication Day: May 02, 2017
First Second Books

advanced copy made available by the publisher and Net Galley (.) com