Breaking Up by Aimee Friedman and Christine Norrie
#11 in my 2007 book challenge was Breaking Up, a graphic novel written Aimee Friedman with art by Christine Norrie. I’ve admired Norrie’s work on the Hopeless Savages series, as well as her previous book Cheat. I’d not read Friedman before. This is the story of four friends at an arts high school nicknamed “Fashion High”. The friends bicker over boys, then “break up” and get back together. The narrator, Chloe, is a painter. She falls for a geek boy; her friends don’t approve. In the end, everyone is wiser and more tolerant, and Chloe and the (very cutely drawn) geek boy are together. This felt a little like a mishmash of 90210 episodes. And while that inspires affection in me, it also disappoints, because there was little that was new here. The dilemmas the girls faced felt real–desire for popularity, overly strict parents, pressuring boyfriend, inappropriate crush–but more young teen than young adult. I did very much like the sneaky, specific, and cruel revenge exacted on the pretty blond by the popularity queen, whose boyfriend the blond was trying to steal.
I suspect that Friedman’s lack of experience writing for the comics format is what made the prose feel a bit stiff to me. But what made this book stand out was Norrie’s art, and her interpretation of the fairly straightforward teen story. Her art gave the characters depth, made them sympathetic, and added both humor and pathos to Friedman’s story. Norrie did a very good job showing what Friedman was telling. The art infuses the story with a sweetness and empathy for its confused teen protagonists that ultimately elevates this above standard YA fare.