The Greatest Thing

The Greatest Thing by Sarah Winifred Searle

Synopsis:

It’s the first day of sophomore year, and now that Winifred’s two best (and only) friends have transferred to a private school, she must navigate high school on her own.

But she isn’t alone for long. In art class, she meets two offbeat students, Oscar and April. The three bond through clandestine sleepovers, thrift store shopping, and zine publishing. Winifred is finally breaking out of her shell, but there’s one secret she can’t bear to admit to April and Oscar, or even to herself—and this lie is threatening to destroy her newfound friendships.

Review:

The Greatest Thing is a nice story that is actually very relatable. One thing I love about this graphic novel is how the Author incorporated pages from the comic the characters made. You got to read Winifred’s comics so it was like a surprise graphic novel inside the graphic novel. Unfortunately outside of this, I feel like I don’t really have any emotional ties to this graphic novel. It was a good story but it wasn’t really driven by a plot, just by characters. I feel like the graphic novel is just missing something. Even though I did enjoy it, I feel like there could have been more.

Characters:

One reason why I might not have absolutely loved this graphic novel is that I didn’t particularly like most of the characters. My favorite character would have to be Tilly because she just seemed like a really cool person, but she was not in this story a lot. Winifred was very relatable and I don’t particularly dislike anything about how she was depicted, I just didn’t feel any actual emotional connection that often makes us feel a character’s emotions more. When something would happen to her that was bad (for example), I would obviously sympathize with her or feel bad but I never really felt a pang of emotion that normally comes with reading about something that happens to a character you like. One character I never really vibed with was April. April always annoyed me. One scene that really got on my nerves was when April was accusing Winifred of being an inconsiderate friend who didn’t think about other people’s situations when April was in fact the one being inconsiderate and not considering other people’s situations. April had more scenes that annoyed me but this was the major one.

Conclusion:

The Greatest Thing was a good graphic novel, even if I didn’t necessarily like all the characters. I like how the author incorporated the character’s own comics and how those reflected what the character was feeling. At its core, this story was relatable, just needed an extra oomph.

Cover Art:

All illustrations and the cover art are by Sarah Winifred Searle!

Let’s Talk:

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