51. Friends With Boys by Faith Erin Hicks

Friends With Boys by Faith Erin Hicks (US) - (Canada)

Pages: 201
Ages: 8+
Finished: Feb. 5, 2012
First Published: Feb. 28, 2012
Publisher: First Second Books
Genre: YA, graphic novel, magical realism
Rating: 5/5



First sentence:  "First day."

Publisher's Summary: "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."

Acquired: Received a review copy from First Second Books.

Reason for Reading:   I enjoy the author/artist and was intrigued that the book was about homeschooled teens.

The author is obviously writing from her own life seeing as she was homeschooled until high school and has three brothers.  This is the background of the main character in the book, added to Maggie's life is that her mom has just skipped out on them without her really knowing why and Maggie has been haunted by a 17th century ghost since she was about six.  I really enjoyed this book.  I think it gave a fairly accurate portrayal of homeschool life though Hicks did treat it like it was the 1990's, not now when it has become pretty much mainstream.  (I was homeschooled for high school in the '80s and have been homeschooling my children in one way or another for the last 19 years.) 

The title is a little deceptive as I thought we might get into dating and stuff, but it refers to sisters being friends with their brothers and I really appreciated this theme.  I don't have any brothers but I really envied the close relationship Maggie had with hers and how the relationship between Lucy and Alistair developed also.  The book deals with other typical teen subjects such as being new to a school, dealing with bullies, how to make friends and what it's like when your brother is popular but you are not.  Hicks artwork is as expected and truly measures up to her other work making it a delight to look at.  The only problem with this could be that she draws her characters very similar and the main two females in this book are almost identical to the two females in "The War at Ellesmere" with different hairdos. 

I loved the characters, the story about the teens at school, the family dynamics, etc. but the bit about the ghost haunting was an oddity.  It stuck out at first and didn't seem to fit in with the rest but eventually it came together and found a place within the larger scheme of things.  Only, while I was happy with the way things ended for the humans in the story, the ghost ending was rather abrupt and left many unanswered questions.  These kinds of endings bother me, but it does give one thoughts to ponder.  Taken as a whole, this is my favourite book by Faith Erin Hicks so far and the small irritations I had with it don't amount to the lessening of my enjoyment, so I'm sticking with the full 5 stars.