Breaking up by Aimee Friedman with art by Christine Norrie

Junior year of high school is bringing some huge changes for Chloe Sacks and her friends.  Mackenzie, her best friend since grade school, is suddenly only interested in seducing a hottie jock and hanging out with the popular crowd.  Ericka is riding out a roller coaster relationship with her demanding boyfriend, and Isabel is fighting with her overprotective parents.  Chloe, the artsy heroine, has boy problems of her own.  She’s developing a serious crush on a nerdy outcast and is afraid that everyone will make fun of her if the secret gets out.  Breaking Up is a graphic novel that deals with some common teen issues in a fresh and entertaining style.  One standout illustration shows the four friends clinging to each other in a tiny lifeboat being tossed on the rocky sea of “acne, grades, sex, boyfriends, popularity, and pressure.”

The story is entertaining on its own, but Christine Norrie’s illustrations take the book to another level of awesome. Her drawings capture the teen characters perfectly and give them depth and life.  I’m definitely planning on checking out more of Norrie’s work, like the graphic novel Hopeless Savages.