Mar 21, 2018
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Honor Girl: A Graphic Memoir by Maggie Thrash (Candlewick Press, 2016)
Synopsis: Maggie Thrash has spent basically every summer of her fifteen-year-old life at the one-hundred-year-old Camp Bellflower for Girls, set deep in the heart of Appalachia. She’s from Atlanta, she’s never kissed a guy, she’s into Backstreet Boys in a really deep way, and her long summer days are full of a pleasant, peaceful nothing . . . until one confounding moment. A split-second of innocent physical contact pulls Maggie into a gut-twisting love for an older, wiser, and most surprising of all (at least to Maggie), female counselor named Erin. But Camp Bellflower is an impossible place for a girl to fall in love with another girl, and Maggie’s savant-like proficiency at the camp’s rifle range is the only thing keeping her heart from exploding. When it seems as if Erin maybe feels the same way about Maggie, it’s too much for both Maggie and Camp Bellflower to handle, let alone to understand. (Goodreads)
I'm still playing around with the formatting of the posts, but I think I will continue with posting the synopsis from Goodreads so I can just skip to the bullet points.
+ I like the juxtaposition between the title and the story of the author. She explains early on about the concept of 'Honor Girl' in relation to the camp, but at the end of her summer and the foreword, it seems like while she embodies the concept of 'Honor Girl' in spirit, the teachings and opinions of those around her would beg to disagree.
- I didn't like the graphics as much. If it weren't for the different hairstyles, it's hard to differentiate one character from the next.
+/- The way it ended is both a good thing and a bad thing. It's a good thing, because life always ends abruptly - there's really no closure in events of people's lives. However, the author must have a point in sharing her story. This was personal, and I guess I was hoping that she herself would "close" the work. It doesn't have to be roses and unicorns kind of resolution, but to leave the frame at that, it seemed underwhelming for such a personal story.
Rating: 3 stars