2025 EDIT: I needed to reread this.
'Friends with Boys' - aaaahhhh, this takes me back. What a trip down memory lane.
It is a coming-of-age graphic novel that feels so real. The characters seem so real that it is almost a disservice to call them 'characters' - they're people. Very interesting, dynamic, flawed, and understandable people, and their interactions with one another are just *chef's kiss*. No one is forgotten about or neglected.
It is a very funny, touching, sweet, refreshing, and grounded story and character piece, ghost or no ghost.
It is very much a character piece, and arc and development. Mainly for the protagonist, Maggie McKay, but the others get their fair share of shining stage moments, as well.
The graphic novel doesn't seem pretentious, confusing, or annoying to me. I feel I understand it a lot better now that I am older. I love the characters too much to be put off by anything in it.
It's a shame that everybody is white and (as far as we know) straight. But at least there's no (overt) romance. That's unique for its time.
'Friends with Boys' is a classic, and one of the graphic novels that got me into graphic novels way back in the day, alongside 'Anya's Ghost' (graphic novelists love ghosts, don't they? They're great for metaphor and visual storytelling), 'The Adventures of Superhero Girl' (also by Faith Erin Hicks), 'Rapunzel's Revenge', 'Page by Paige', 'Nimona', 'Princess Princess Ever After', 'Princeless', and 'Rat Queens'. Of course I'm keeping it, I owe it that much.
By the bye, Daniel McKay remains one of the hottest fictional guys ever.
Final Score: 4/5
Original Review:
I picked up 'Friends with Boys' on a whim, because I'd heard good things about it on Goodreads and it sounded a little like 'Anya's Ghost', another comic I enjoyed. Though while there is a ghost in this story, it's not a big focus. No, the major and most interesting focus is the characters and their interactions with one another.
Seriously, Maggie, Daniel, Lloyd, Zander, Lucy and Alistair are people you know in real life. Even outcasts such as Lucy, who I found to be cute. I've met people who are like Daniel, who ARE Daniel.
Maggie McKay is another great comic book heroine - a tomboy who isn't as strong as she wants to be; who has large insecurities involving her mother abandoning her family, and involving going to high school after a home-schooled life. She is a realistic and confused teenager, and she discovers more about herself as the story progresses. Maggie will wish to redeem for the things she blames herself for. But can she fix everything?
The main characters of 'Friends with Boys' are interesting young people in interesting high school situations doing interesting young people stuff, like going to the cinema to see 'Alien' (one of my favourite parts of the story). I say read 'Friends with Boys' for the characters alone.
That's not to say there isn't a good plot, as it touches on real issues that affect teenagers. These include: accepting change (Maggie is even afraid of her dad getting a new haircut, which is sad in its own way), seeking redemption in a place like high school where "you can lose your soul", learning that not everything is always going to turn out the way you want it to, loving and appreciating what you have, and being different is cool no matter what anyone says.
Though I admit that the story does weaken a little near the end, and there is no real conclusion (mostly concerning the ghost), which did annoy me. But the more I thought about it, the more I understood that it fits with the overall themes of the comic. And I have several theories about the ghost and its relationship with Maggie and her brothers, so perhaps 'Friends with Boys' isn't as simple as it appears.
Some things have no definite end - that's life. At least the friendship and family aspects were not lost along the way.
I'm not sure if Faith Erin Hicks is planning a sequel to 'Friends with Boys', and I'd be excited if she is, because I'd love to revisit the characters. What else will Maggie and the gang get up to?
A touching and funny graphic novel - with fun and expressive artwork.
Final Score: 4/5
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