Both smalls and I have read Real Friends. We’ve talked about the friends in the book and referenced their friends and choices the characters/real people have made.

An honest look at the perils of grade school friendships… and boy was it triggering! I love the use of imagination and that despite the peril there was warmth, fun, and hope. “After all, no one’s destiny is to be alone.”

If you are a fan of Shannon Hale or if you enjoyed El Deafo (I have yet to read Raina Telgemeier's memoirs Smile or Sisters) I think you'll appreciate this book about the somewhat fictionalized Shannon's experiences navigating female friendship in elementary school. I didn't have the greatest time in grade school and I was a bit of a brat frankly but I didn't appreciate how bizarrely mean little girls can be towards eachother. Cliques have always been a thing but the weird ranking of friends and the backstabbing and intrigue all happened outside my experience. Also LeUyen Pham is one of my favorite illustrators so it's definitely worth it for that.

A super cute graphic memoir! Some very realistic frenemy and sibling relationships are well portrayed.

Great story about a girl (the author) who goes through friend drama in elementary school. Not a neatly-ended story, but plenty to talk about with children dealing with these issues. Overall a positive story with lessons learned and some hope for the future.

I think any girl who's gone through elementary school, middle school, high school can relate to this story. Shoot, I think any grown adult woman can relate to having to deal with catty, petty, cliquish, gossipy, backbiting females. It doesn't end when you become a grown-up, I'm sorry to say (even though, when I was a kid, I thought it would). Women are the worst to each other. I don't know what it is, but we just know exactly how to twist the proverbial knife in each other's backs. I can honestly say I've endured more emotional abuse and heartache from other girls and women than I have from any man in my life. It's not just the pretty cheerleader types who do this, either. I've run into plenty of geeky girls who shunned me for one reason or another - and the reasons were even dumber than the reasons the popular supermodel babes in high school had. I admit, I often envied the boys that I grew up with. Seemed like they could just get into fistfights when they had problems with their friends. But after they got caught fighting and served their punishments, they could all be friends again.

But I digress. Only slightly. Because this book hit really close to the bone. Don't get me wrong - I'm glad that it did. I will say that I'm not sorry that I had to deal with Mean Girls when I was a kid because it prepared me to deal with the Mean Girls that I've encountered as an adult. Part of me wishes I could go back and tell younger-me that it's going to be okay, even after I wasn't invited to parties or left out of things my "friends" were doing or when I was taken advantage of. Life isn't about the little world in elementary school or even high school. It's not even the relatively little world of college.

I feel like what Shannon Hale is doing with this book is writing a letter to Little Shannon - reflecting on the trials she did have to go through, but that those things led her to where she is now. This wasn't about regret or "Oh, I wish I could have been popular back then." This is about "Look at the lessons I learned and how that's helped me now." That's been my attitude about my own past, even when those bad memories resurface, which they do from time to time. It doesn't matter that I've accomplished so much in my life and that I'm in a pretty good place and I have people that love me - remembering how So-and-So in middle school told me I was a dirty rotten XYZ still makes me feel small and insignificant.

I hope this book helps kids realize that they may have to endure fake friends in the moment, but that things will get better over time. It's never fun to hear "Look at all the lessons you're learning!" in the middle of a bad experience. Trust me - I hate hearing that more than anything when I'm going through something awful. That being said - it is nice to know that you aren't the only one who has to deal with that kind of crap from people. And maybe it will help another girl learn that she doesn't have to be that way to someone else.

This graphic memoir is a truthful account of female friendships throughout elementary school. Shannon Hale is a great storyteller and LeUyen Pham creates fun illustrations to accompany the story.