The styles flowed perfectly, and even in the more prose-heavy sections, never got bogged down thanks to the expressive artworks. It switches styles between frame-by-frame comics while in Maya’s POV, and text narration with pictures while in Jamie’s POV, to support her sizeable internal dialogue. Being mindful of their actions and having empathy about how they may affect others is a critical lesson for middle schoolers as they start dealing with the social dynamics of teenage life. We just have to be brave enough to understand what we’ve done and apologize. The thing I love the most about this novel is that it shows how sometimes we can the antagonist. Jamie’s story, on the other hand, is about recovery, making new friends, and forgiveness. Maya’s story is a rollercoaster of ups and downs as she learns to judge what is important and what truly brings her happiness.

Maya isn’t simply being mean, she’s facing immense peer pressure to fit in with more popular girls: she sees that Jamie still doesn’t care about makeup, never keeps up with trends, and has a flat stick for a body. The story is told from two different perspectives, Jamie’s and Maya’s, and being able to see both sides of the story brings a great amount of depth to the plot.

She can’t even begin to imagine spending the whole summer break alone. Jamie feels betrayed, confused, angry, and most importantly, lonely. It’s the last day of seventh grade, summer break is just around the corner, awesome plans are being made, and her best friend is… acting distant? Jamie knows something’s off but could never have imagined that Maya, her BFF, would dump her from their friend group with a text. Terri Libenson’s graphic novel Just Jamie centers around the titular character as she attempts to navigate one of the worst days of her life. Everyone is changing (including you!), trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be, and that can make people unpredictable… even your best friends. Depending on your friends and enemies, school can turn out to be a cool hangout or a nightmare. I mean, sure, the school part sucks-the teachers and homework-but you can kinda control your grades by working hard.

Funny-I think my body is starting to go through all that fight-or-flight stuff, but from the outside, you probably can’t tell. Everything I worried about but hoped wasn’t true. Middle Grade, Contemporary Realism, Graphic Novel

Just jaime graphic novel