Making Friends

I am taking this month to highlight some of the titles I read for the Excellence in Graphic Literature Awards presented earlier this month at the Denver Pop Culture Con. Making Friends was a book I was excited to read because I had read a couple of titles by its author Kristen Gudsnuk in recent years. It takes its title literally, because it is about a teenage girl named Danielle who inherits a sketchbook from her great-aunt. Normally, this is not out of the ordinary, but it turns out the sketchbook is magical and can bring to life anything drawn in its pages. Danielle (Dany for short) is into anime, which takes an unfortunate turn as one of the first things she draws is the head of Prince Neptune, an evil alien overlord. Luckily, it only being a head makes it concealable, but (spoiler) it eventually figures out a way to wreak havoc.

Where this book really takes an intriguing turn is when the isolated Dany uses it to create a popular newcomer to her school, Madison Fontaine, to be her best friend and change her social status. Dany's plan has lots of unexpected wrinkles, biggest of which is that Madison becomes cognizant of being a fictional creation with no real family or home. Also, her being under Dany's control brings on some dark overtones. On top of this bunch of strange social dynamics, Dany also has to contend with and foil the evil plans of Prince Neptune, which brings a huge, unexplained catastrophe to town.

I found Making Friends to be a fun book that turned my plot expectations on their heads. It features interesting characters and a good amount of suspense. I was also impressed by how it made this magical premise work with "real world" repercussions. My only gripe would be that I felt that ending seemed a bit rushed in terms of the whole narrative, but overall I felt the book was exceptionally good.

Like I noted before, it is the creation of Kristen Gudsnuk, who has also created a couple of titles Henchgirl and Modern Fantasy I have enjoyed. Her artwork is expressive and features lots of little gags peppered throughout, which I found to be a funny and rewarding bonus. She speaks about her various works in this interview.

Making Friends was published by Scholastic Graphix, and they offer more info about it here. And good news for those who like me who like this book: it's getting a sequel.

The publisher provided a review copy.