I liked it but I didn’t LOVE it. The friendship dynamic felt odd, (probably because the characters are so young)

Beah is just not really a great friend and is actually pretty selfish. But I think readers are supposed to like her and Jay’s friendship anyways? It’s kind of unclear whether she’s supposed to be seen as a good friend or a bad one. The story did feel pretty rushed and random at times, with new characters popping out of nowhere(beats brother in the cafeteria scene). I’m not really sure what the main message of the book would be because Beah doesn’t really evolve as a character in my opinion, she just seems to expect everyone to bend to her life which I wasn’t a fan of. I can see the vision for the story I just think it could’ve gone so much further and instead fell kinda flat. This is making the book sound really bad but I genuinely don’t regret reading it so if the book sounds interesting and you think you might like you should definitely read it. I think this book would definitely be better liked by middle graders or a generally younger audience. I did really like the art style it was gorgeous all the outfits,coloring and general aesthetic/colors of the characters and settings were really cool. Although I didn’t connect to this particular story, I did like the art so will probably read other graphic novels by this author in the future it wasn’t poorly written it just wasn’t fleshed out enough for me.