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A review by togidemi
This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki
3.0
Beautiful art from Jillian Tamaki - the rough inks especially shine in pensive scenes showing off the environment. The characters are nicely expressive and visually distinct from each other despite the relatively simple style they're rendered in.
Story-wise it was kinda just eh. The atmosphere of a warm, nostalgic summer at the cusp of adolescence was perfectly captured, but those summers are pretty aimless - and for better or worse, this graphic novel echoes it. Rose's curiosity and angst about the things around her, her attempts to show that she's more grown up than she really is, are pretty fucking accurate to the preteen experience, but all that bubbling around with other summer shenaniganery just kept me from getting really engrossed into it. I don't know, I guess I just like my stories to be a bit more concrete. Plot threads get woven in, but they're resolved(?) at a kinda... sluggish, barely-there pace. I was surprised the book ended where it did because... like, even with it being the end of summer, the closing line was just so... mundane? Which I guess is the point but like, man, hit me with a bit of an attempt at a banger at least when you're closing off??
Story-wise it was kinda just eh. The atmosphere of a warm, nostalgic summer at the cusp of adolescence was perfectly captured, but those summers are pretty aimless - and for better or worse, this graphic novel echoes it. Rose's curiosity and angst about the things around her, her attempts to show that she's more grown up than she really is, are pretty fucking accurate to the preteen experience, but all that bubbling around with other summer shenaniganery just kept me from getting really engrossed into it. I don't know, I guess I just like my stories to be a bit more concrete. Plot threads get woven in, but they're resolved(?) at a kinda... sluggish, barely-there pace. I was surprised the book ended where it did because... like, even with it being the end of summer, the closing line was just so... mundane? Which I guess is the point but like, man, hit me with a bit of an attempt at a banger at least when you're closing off??