Graphic Novel Review - 'How It All Ends' by Emma Hunsinger

'How It All Ends' - yet another LBGTQ+ coming-of-age graphic novel. Let's keep these coming.

I thought I wouldn't like this at first, as it took me a while to get used to the cartoony and chaotic artwork. But it grew on me eventually. I even understood the aquamarine, white, orange and red colour choices, in an elementary dawning of realisation. Both the art and the narrative flow quite well together, and the comic isn't too cramped and crowded.

It's all about a thirteen-year-old girl, Tara Gimmel, as she navigates a new school and her nearly-nonexistent social life. She finds she's suddenly skipped a grade, and is now in high school, being pulled in new and scary directions, like she is submerged in the swarming, swamping rivers in teen hell, in an environment that's ridiculous and hard to understand. It's like a zoo, where there are seemingly no rules and order.

She's supposed to survive four years of this?!

Combined with how, despite being a supposed academically smart student, she isn't what you'd call adroit in these situations, and this whole cusp of early adulting thing could become disastrous.

Tara's only oasis in this hard and stinky ball of confusing, pubescent life comes from an unexpected place: a new friend. Another girl who is in her worst class amongst all the boys, for her favourite subject, English. Her name is Libby, and she is so nice and funny, and she makes Tara happy.

Tara loves being around Libby, and can't wait for the otherwise unbearable English class each day because of her. She can't stop thinking about her.

Could Tara's feelings for Libby be sparked, and then grow, into something beyond friendship? As if Tara's thoughts, feelings and anxieties weren't jumbled and overwhelming enough.

It's amazing how many kids will be able to relate to Tara, in any part and aspect of her life. Emma Hunsinger really captured the insanity of high school and being young.

Teenage boys are gross, disgusting monsters, with no self-control. They are like monkeys, but far less polite and more malicious. To the point of psychopathy.

(Apologies to any teenage boy who isn't in fact any of those things and is a decent, civilised human being, but you have to agree, you know what I'm talking about here. And it is mostly the patriarchy, toxic masculinity and r*pe culture ("boys will be boys") that lets them get away with behaving so abhorrently.)

'How It All Ends' is like a completed, self-contained newspaper comic, without the panel lines, and with 'The Simpsons'-style humour. Oddly enough, it also reminds me of the Disney Saturday morning cartoon 'Pepper Ann' (wow I'm old), and it is an Ages 8+ graphic novel, so that's fitting. 'How It All Ends' could be any cartoon about the trials of adolescence.

Comparisons to other comic books are: 'Rainbow!' (with the imaginative teen sapphic protag), 'Page by Paige', 'Living with Viola', 'The New Girl', 'Of Her Own Design' (minus the fantasy element), 'Cross My Heart and Never Lie', and 'Heartstopper' (there's even a Tara in that, too!), and basically any teen girl coming-of-age comic.

I like Tara's close and loving relationship with her older-by-22-months sister, and best friend, Isla, with its ups and downs, and (often aggressive and violent) tantrums and altercations. Theirs is a realistic young sibling bond, to hopefully last for years to come. And speaking of, there's Tara's much more innocent and adorable relationship with her toddler brother, Pete, who she is play buddies with, and with whom she is at her most active in her imagination. It is wonderful.

Never lose your childlike sense of play, people - it's good for the soul.

Tara's understated, quiet, blooming, well developed and well paced friendship with Libby is very nice, sweet and wholesome, as well.

Flaws in 'How It All Ends' include:

Like I said, I didn't initially get into the cartoony artwork (it kind of reminds me of Quentin Blake, now that I think about it). Tara doesn't imagine stuff nearly as much as the cover and blurb practically blare out like klaxons; at least not the positive, playful fantasies, in comparison to the anxiety-induced nightmare scenarios (that somehow come to Tara fearing that bugs will burst out of her skin - it is that kind of comic). I didn't believe at any point in the comic that she is academic, clever and overachieving enough to warrant skipping a grade; it's (barely) told and not really shown. Not that Tara doesn't possess other good qualities, befitting a thirteen-year-old just stepping into the reaching tides of adulthood, but she seems like an ordinary, average kid to me.

Not everything flows or connects together, though that is true to life, I suppose, where nothing has to connect or make sense, nor be linear.

And this is a nitpick, but in a part near the beginning, Tara and Libby do an English class project together about Orpheus and Eurydice, and when Libby tells the story to Tara, Persephone is not mentioned by name; she is only referred to once as "Hades's wife". WTF? That is the exact opposite of feminism and equality in a 2024 publication.

Finally, the book could have used more POC representation. Almost everyone is homogeneously white. It's baffling and disconcerting.

Thus concludes my review of 'How It All Ends' (nothing actually ends, btw, for Tara's young life has only just begun, and she is just figuring herself out, after all). It is a funny, chaotic, and touching and sweet children's and young adults' graphic novel, about a girl who is tired of feeling like a baby, and being left out, but is scared to grow up. To face reality, and discover new things. To discover herself. But she has to find herself again first, in a boost of self-confidence.

She is overwhelmed by changes, and it is terribly relatable and sad, but also hopeful.

Hopeful for a bright, sound, certain, happy future, despite the obstacles and mistakes, that simply come with growing up.

Final Score: 3.5/5