This One Summer was an excellently crafted coming-of-age story. Mariko and Jillian Tamaki captured the messiness of being thirteen and their thoughtful, understated storytelling packed a punch. 

What I most appreciated about This One Summer was its willingness to let images evoke emotion. Mariko's restraint with dialogue and narration allowed Jillian to craft some of the most evocative moments in the book. Jillian's inky brush strokes and excellent pencilling zoomed in on the mundane and made relatively small moments feel enormous which is exactly the type of storytelling I love in books about adolescence. The slow summer days binging movies and tanning on the beach and world-ending crushes were rendered vividly on the page. 

The story's heart is its characters. Our protagonist Rose is far from likable. She's self-centred and a little bit mean in the ways we all probably were at that age. But the Tamakis never shy away from depicting her honestly even when she's infuriating. That emotional honesty made for a satisfying and authentic reading experience.

Overall, This One Summer achieves its goals with flying colours. It's a true portrait of a sliver of a young girl's adolescence and it transported me to my early teens in the best way.