rickjones's Reviews (1.66k)

This book was like a rollercoaster ride. I loved following along with the characters' highs and lows, and feeling both empathy and anger towards them in the process. Their voices on the page sounded so organic that it felt as if I'd been familiar with the group all my life. Each character had an interesting perspective of events, and even when they disagreed on which actions had actually transpired, I always felt like I could believe that their intentions and emotions were true. Many of the passages in this book tugged at my heart, and felt sadly relatable.

The copy of this book that I read was borrowed from my younger sister, who underlined and drew hearts around some statements about womanhood and love and Daisy's refusal to be used or made into a muse. I love that through reading it, I got to learn more about perspectives she valued. We both look forward to watching the series adapting this title, and I highly recommend reading the book beforehand. The unique storytelling method and the skillfully written words the characters utilize to both hide behind and open themselves up are worth the time and effort it takes to read them. I began reading this book immediately after waking up at seven this morning, and didn't put it down until I finished it in the mid-afternoon. It's really that engaging.

This is a very sweet book. Throughout it, the values of curiosity, dedication, community, friendship and kindness are highlighted. Cici is also taught later in the story that it's important to balance her intrigue into people's lives with respect towards them, and towards those she relies on for help solving her mysteries. Learning to improve your empathy for others and admit when you were wrong is an important skill for anyone to practice, and one that may be especially new for young readers. I appreciated that while there are times Cici's mother doesn't understand how meaningful her daughter's adventures are to her, she's never portrayed as the villain in her story. The first volume ends with Cici realizing that to have a good relationship with her mother, she must put effort in too. 

I also enjoyed how this book was formatted with Cici's journal pages to begin the comic and intersect with it. Cici's writing and art was very entertaining, and gave us more insight into who she was as a character. I look forward to reading the second volume once it becomes available at my library.

This is a really odd story, but one I practically fell into, as I read it in the course of one evening, only pausing to eat dinner. After finishing it, I'm left with a kind of melancholy emptiness. The most striking theme in this story to me is one of grief, both for youthful ignorance lost, and for realizing you never found the words to unlock your family members, the same people who sat alongside you and spoke to you daily for years upon years, and never really got to know the most important pieces to them, until suddenly you had run out of time. As confused as this book made me feel during some chapters, I think those are pains most of us can relate to, although we wish we didn't.

Wow... this book was a rewarding read, but also a sad one. Nova shone as the principle character, as her behaviors and thoughts and deep love of space and her sister made her feel like a real girl. Her emotions and frustrations and worries were easy to empathize with and understand, and I can imagine young readers of this title will feel the same. 

It's so important that this story highlighted how small differences in how Francine, Billy and Joanie treat Nova, like speaking to her with the same cadence they would to anyone else, are meaningful signs of respect. Though many years have passed since 1986, there are people who still talk to tweens, teens and even adults with speech difficulties as if they're infantile, or make little effort to communicate with them at all. Throughout this book, readers are taught and reminded that ableism is often the heaviest weight on people with disabilities. Nova has a rich imagination and passionate knowledge of space to uplift her, along with the love of her sister, but the low expectations of her social worker and teachers restrict her learning and expression. Her story thankfully does not revolve around her having to "overcome" her autism and apraxia of speech. Rather, what she must overcome is the ableism of those who are meant to guide her and teach her, and she is never tasked with doing this alone. This possible introduction to the social model of disability is essential for young readers to understand and internalize, so they can learn to stand up for themselves and their disabled peers. The back of the book wisely includes more information and resources for readers to understand autism and intellectual disabilities, and how terminology and treatment of disabled people in the real world has changed since Nova's story occured.

I have little doubt that young readers on the autism spectrum will feel understood by this book, and that their allistic peers who read it will feel a greater understanding towards them. I was happy to learn that the book's author is autistic as well, and added some of their own behaviors to Nova's story. Self advocacy is important to the autistic community and to myself, but there aren't many published stories about autism by autistic writers. This is the only one I know of for a juvenile audience at the moment. I highly recommend this book to other readers, and especially to teachers, who could positively influence students by adding it to their classrooms or school reading list.