Review by Booklist Review
Brie Page runs away from many problems: her parents fighting about leaving their small town, her former best friend Viv's barbs, and her extreme nervousness any time she's near crush Kay. But the biggest problem, or the one she's most focused on, is writer's block. Cue a random encounter, a mysterious shop, and a writing bender, and Brie wakes up to a world full of items from her stories and suspicious portals that have whisked away those she cares about most. Jumping between stories is wonderful for the varied settings and how Brie must confront her issues. The art fabulously reflects the genres of Brie's stories from Wild West to space pirate to doomed Regency romance. Brie's movements are communicated so earnestly with awkward, frantic motions that anyone who is or was a self-conscious teen will easily recognize her emotional state. But she must overcome her nerves and avoidant tendencies to take control of her stories, share her feelings, and hopefully save the day. A great jumping-off point for young creatives to ponder what would happen if their own work came to life.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Freckled and pale-skinned high school sophomore Brie is struggling to think of a concept for her next writing project. Between her crush on cool new girl Kay, her mother wanting to move to the city, and her best friend turned enemy's relationship with her neighbor, Brie's life is complicated--but dull. She drudges through a colorless existence and hopes for a stroke of inspiration for her writing; her work is the only anchor she has. When she bargains for a magic pen from enigmatic bookstore owner Ambrose, the stories Brie writes with it literally come to life in this rollicking portal fantasy graphic novel by Andelfinger and Willis. Suddenly enmeshed within the dramatic stories of her own making--portrayed via highly stylized and saturated art, which juxtapose the angular, cleanly lined grayscale renderings of Brie's everyday--Brie must save the people of her imagined town before their world devolves into chaos. Bouncy dialogue imbues Brie's adventures with their own narrative flair, chronicled through a mixture of standard panel layouts and sweeping montage collages that keep a steady pace. The finely tuned parallel realities make for an engaging look at big emotions, bigger magic, and the consequences of both. Ages 14--up. (June)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
In Willis and Andelfinger's graphic novel, a high schooler finds herself thrown inside her own fiction. Brie Page just wants to get through high school being as invisible as possible so she can go home and write her stories, or listen to her podcast about writing, or think about writing. When her mother forces her out of the house to do "normal teen stuff," Brie finds herself in front of a bookstore she's never seen before. The very strange store owner's name is Ambrose. When Brie confesses her teenage woes, Ambrose offers to let her buy a special pen that will supposedly help Brie in crafting her tales and escaping the real world. After fighting with her former friend Viv on the way home, Brie sits down with her new pen and starts to write three different stories, with hours passing in the blink of an eye. The next morning, Brie opens her locker at school to find a portal inside. Entering it takes her to another world with talking horses and a sorceress--and Brie herself is the queen. Knowing this is one of her yarns, Brie follows the plot, but it doesn't quite go as she wrote it ("This was supposed to be the end of the story…and yet I'm still here!"). Hopping from one of her texts to the next, Brie starts to realize something is going on and changes her writing, pulling her family and friends into the madness. In this cleverly constructed graphic novel, Taylor and Marchbank use mostly black-and-white illustrations, switching to bright colors when Brie hops into her stories. With inspirational themes of standing up for yourself against bullies, taking charge of your own narrative, and finally finding a way to talk to your crush, this engaging story has something for everyone. A teenager rewrites her story in this enchanting yarn. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
