Review by New York Times Review
IN "SISTERS," THE latest graphic memoir by Raina Telgemeier, it is the summer before high school and Raina is stuck between a squirrelly little brother and a volatile younger sister in a van without air conditioning. They are on a weeklong drive from their home in San Francisco to a family reunion in Colorado Springs, and as temperatures rise, so do tempers. Raina and her sister, Amara, argue over everything, from what to do about a snake on the loose ("What if we shut him in a suitcase till we're home?") to their parents' relationship ("You don't think Mom and Dad are gonna split up ... do you?"). Memories of improbable pet deaths, their father's unemployment and the difficulties of coexisting in a small apartment are woven into the tale of their emotional and sometimes tense journey through the American West. Readers may remember Raina from Telgemeier's "Smile," published four years ago, which followed her struggles to navigate adolescence, friendships and prolonged orthodontic misadventures. Through "Smile," I watched Raina grow up and learn to hold her head high, and I was totally rooting for her. Telgemeier's honesty and humor made it easy to feel as if I knew her. Saying goodbye was bittersweet, so I was excited to read "Sisters." Although the story follows the same characters who appear in "Smile," "Sisters" could easily be read as a standalone. "Smile" focused mainly on Raina's struggles to fit in and find her place in school; "Sisters" takes a closer look at sibling relationships, challenges at home and what it means to be a family. "Sisters" has one of the most accurate portrayals of a family reunion I have ever read. As little kids charge unsupervised through the house and adults exist in a separate realm of arguing, Raina tries to revive her relationship with her cousins after years without them. Although her extended family is friendly, Raina never quite feels included or comfortable. I, too, have spent nights on a relative's floor in a sleeping bag wondering when the cool older cousins outgrew me. In those awkward moments, I, like Raina, turn toward siblings, because even though we often fight, we've got one another's backs. Throughout the book, Raina spends a lot of time tuning out the noise of her everyday life. With the help of a Walkman and some cassette tapes, she manages to disappear into her own world. But as the road trip continues, it becomes clear that Amara, though younger, has picked up more clues about what's going on between their parents than Raina has, and Raina starts to pay more attention. "Sisters" is a quick read as well as a fun one. Telgemeier uses her expressive, cartoon-style drawings to bring context and emotion to the minimal text, which is almost entirely dialogue. I love her work, not because it is exotic or unusual, but because she writes stories we have all lived, and tells them in a way that feels uncomfortable yet transcendent. "Sisters" is about ordinary family conflict, about things never going exactly to plan. But that is life. The profound thing Raina discovers is that we do not have to navigate the difficulties alone. Whether we are born into one or find one later in life, we have families. And although we may not get along 100 percent of the time, they are there for us during those unforeseen bumps in the road. Even if they will tease us about it later. MAYA VAN WAGENEN, a junior in high school, is the author of "Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [September 7, 2014]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Telgemeier's follow-up to Smile (2010) possibly the only universally embraced graphic novel on the planet offers the same thoughtful perspective while also creating a slightly more mature and complex tone. Raina boards the family minivan traveling from California to Colorado to visit relatives, sharing a charged and eventful trip with her mother, sister, and younger brother. Cleverly, the trip is interspersed with flashbacks that flesh out the emotional background and neatly dovetail with Smile. While the focus of the story explores Raina's combative relationship with her younger sister, Amara, it is in some sense about families themselves, the tensions they breed, the unspoken worries that swirl through households, and the ways an older generation's unintended example echoes through younger generations. This may sound dark and heavy, but it actually exists only as an underlying reality. Telgemeier keeps the surface story popping and zippy, even through the constant sparring between the awkwardly adolescent Raina and her firecracker younger sister, a relationship that will prove profoundly familiar to many readers. Telgemeier's art complements her writing to great effect, offering a cheerful, vivid cartoon simplicity that allows readers to instantly engage even as it leaves room for deeper truths to take hold. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: New York Times best-selling Smile continues to be one of the most widely loved kid's graphic novels in recent history. With a sizable first print run, Telgemeier's publisher is counting on a repeat performance.--Karp, Jesse Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 4 Up-Telgemeier has returned with a must-have follow-up to Smile (Scholastic, 2010) that is as funny as it is poignant, and utterly relatable for anyone with siblings. This realistic graphic memoir tells the story of Raina; her sister, Amara; and her brother, Will, as they take a road trip with their mother from California to Colorado to join a family reunion. The author's narrative style is fresh and sharp, and the combination of well-paced and well-placed flashbacks pull the plot together, moving the story forward and helping readers understand the characters' point of view. The volume captures preadolescence in an effortless and uncanny way and turns tough subjects, such as parental marriage problems, into experiences with which readers can identify. This ability is what sets Telgemeier's work apart and makes her titles appealing to such a wide variety of readers. Not only does the story relay the road trip's hijinks, but it also touches on what happens with the advent of a new sibling and what it means to be truly sisters. Fans of the graphic novelist's work will be sure to delight in this return to the Telgemeier's family drama.-Krishna Grady, Darien Library, CT (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Fans of Telgemeier's graphic-novel memoir Smile will be smiling all the way through this companion book, an often bittersweet but amusingly told story about Raina's intense and difficult relationship with her younger sister, Amara. The summer before Raina starts high school, she and Amara, their younger brother, and their mom take a road trip from California to Colorado for a family reunion. As in Smile, sepia-toned pages mark the frequent flashbacks, which fill readers in on the evolution of this battle of the sisters, mainly involving Amara's outsized personality, her love of drawing (art had always been Raina's thing), and her love of snakes (Raina is terrified of them). In one crucial flashback Raina receives a Walkman for Christmas, and from then on she's able to tune out all the yelling (both happy and angry) in their small house. The Walkman also proves invaluable on the road trip -- until frustrated Amara informs Raina that not only has she tuned out all signs of their parents' troubled marriage, she's completely tuned out Amara. The story ends with a solidly believable truce between the warring siblings, who, one suspects, will continue to both annoy and support each other. Telgemeier's art humorously captures fourteen-year-old Raina's range of emotions, easily drawing readers into the story, which doesn't depend on having read the first book. The jacket art, however, cleverly ties this book to its predecessor: Smile's yellow smiley face with braces now also sports headphones, while a second (not-so-smiley) face glares angrily at the first. jennifer m. brabander (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Two sisters who are constantly at odds take a family road trip that covers more groundboth literally and figurativelythan they expect.After begging her parents for a sister, Raina gets more than she bargained for once Amara is born. From the moment she was brought home, Amara hasn't been quite the cuddly playmate that Raina had hoped. As the years pass, the girls bicker constantly and apparently couldn't be more unalike: Raina spends her time indoors underneath her headphones, and Amara loves animals and the outdoors. The girls, their mother and their little brother all pack up to drive to a family reunion, and it seems like the trip's just going to be more of the same, with the girls incessantly picking on each other all the way from San Francisco to Colorado. However, when the trip doesn't go quite as plannedfor a number of reasonsthe girls manage to find some common ground. Told in then-and-now narratives that are easily discernable in the graphic format, Telgemeier's tale is laugh-out-loud funny (especially the story about the snake incident) and quietly serious all at once. Her rounded, buoyant art coupled with a masterful capacity for facial expressions complements the writing perfectly. Fans of her previous books Smile (2010) and Drama (2012) shouldn't miss this one; it's a winner.A wonderfully charming tale of family and sisters that anyone can bond with. (Graphic memoir. 7-13) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
