There aren't a lot of books on invisible disabilities so it was really good to read one about it. The fact that it wasn't immediately mentioned as well was a pretty good way to explore it, as in real life, it's not obvious. Exploration of loneliness, friendship and priorities was also really good. Very good graphic novel

A middle grade graphic novel as saturated with color as it is with feeling.

Harriet's family just moved to Chicago and she's not enjoying spending summer alone in her new sweltering hot second story apartment. With her parents at work all day and her old friends away at summer camp Harriet is left alone with only her summer reading, her imagination, and the landlady downstairs for company.
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Like a regular teenage girl, Harriet prefers movies to books, and companions her own age to grandmotherly neighbors. Unlike a regular teenage girl, Harriet has a crazy imagination, and some pretty serious stuff on her mind.
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My favorite thing about this book was that it is realistic but overwhelmingly positive both in tone and in message. This is a story of a family facing real hardship, but instead of fracturing apart under the strain they come together. You can even see that reflected in the visuals. The panels are drawn in vibrant saturated slightly flat color which keeps the book quite upbeat and cheerful. But the characters themselves are actually realistic. They each have a different body type and skin tone, and project an overwhelmingly positive image.
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Overall I give this 4 stars and I'm intrigued to see what Ms. Searle does next.

Harriet has moved to Chicago with her parents. She wishes she could attend summer camp and writes to a couple of the girls she met the previous year. She is bored when her parents are at work and befriends the woman downstairs. Pearl tries to get Harriet to read more to expand her burgeoning imagination. As Harriet goes through several mishaps, the reader discovers Harriet’s limitations, dreams and realities.

This is my first graphic novel. If this book is any example, I have found a new genre to explore. This is a fantastic sample. The illustrations are vivid and enjoyable. The writing is complex while being informative at the same time.

This is a wonderful book about disabilities, friendship, loneliness, fantasies, and trying things one thinks they don’t like. How the author packed all of these great subjects into one story is amazing. Just like the book.


I received an eBook ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affects my opinions or ratings of this book.

I love the character and the representation in this book, but the pacing of it was so off. The transitions were awkward and it almost made the book feel out of order because it was so choppy during the first few scenes. Also, it ended kind of randomly. Everything else was great but the plot and structure needed tweaking.

This book tells the story of Harriet, a young girl who is pretty much left alone as her busy parents spend their time working. She is new to the city of Chicago and has no friends. She writes postcards to friends from back home, but gets no letters from anyone. She is befriended by an older woman who is also a former librarian. She encourages Harriet to read more and to make up her own stories as well. Harriet is also, later in the book, diagnosed as having MS and her parents finally start paying attention to her. At the end, she joins a creative writing group. I didn't love this book. The illustrations are pretty well done, but the story seemed to wander and there wasn't a real resolution. It really bothered me that Harriet's parents only seemed to pay attention to her after her diagnosis, but my main problem with this title is that the plot seemed incoherent and wandering. I don't understand what message the author was trying to convey at all.

Sincerely, Harriet is a heartwarming graphic novel about a girl suffering from a chronic illness, and the boredom she experiences as she's stuck in the apartment all summer.
I enjoyed the story a great deal. Harriet is a compelling protagonist, acting as normally as she can at her age, and the situations she gets herself into seem familiarly realistic. The story is presented well, with an art style and color scheme that beautifully captures both the melancholy of a bored teen, and the time period the story is set in. But entire time I was reading, I felt as though something was missing - I feel as though there is need for another layer to the story that would better capture Harriet's feelings.
Overall, it's a fast read with a sweet story and great artwork.

I'm not sure any of the graphic novels in my collection currently deal with chronic conditions and the fact that Searle has done it so well makes Sincerely, Harriet a definite purchase for my collection!

I really liked this book as a coming of age story for a shy teen. The man character also has a disability but that doesn’t drive the story. It is important to her life and understanding her experience. The book has good silent scenes and the characters are well developed. A quick good read for adults, and I would hope it appeals to kids.

The author’s note at the end of this mentions how Harriet and the polio survivor she imagines corresponding with have invisible disabilities, which can make it harder for people to extend them the same patience as they would for me visible disabilities. She masterfully tells Harriet’s story with small visual glimpses of what she has been through and what challenges she has without going in to deeper detail, in part because these are just small parts of who she is as a person, something she’s just beginning to understand for herself. There is more than enough in this tale to stir up our empathy for her.

"Stories are good company, aren't they? Always there for us when we need them."

I like the colorful drawings of the characters and the meaningful content of each bubble head. It is also a fast-paced story wherein it will leave you searching for more answers. The ending is not quite satisfying but all in all, the whole graphic novel is good.

We live in a world of #depressedpeople and tend to rant about all things unpleasant in life. But, do we even think of those people dying from sickness in their physical bodies when we said "I want to die" repeatedly? Like it's just an expression, a chant when you feel lonely or you're so sad you think you can't take everything. Remember what Charles Buchowski said in his book Perks o Being a Wallflower that "Others have it a lot worse."

"They think I'm scared of being sick, but it's not really that. They don't understand."

This is a story of a sick teenager who is in dire need of normalcy in her life.
"I don't want to be a teenager who can't go to sleepovers because I'm scared I might wet the bed. I want to find real friends who actually like the same stuff I do, and I want to do normal friend things with them and I'm just so tired of being alone."

Some of the quotes that I like in this book says:

"Don't be sorry, be better."

"Next time you're tempted to make things up, why don't you try writing them down?"

She has a librarian friend! How nice it is to have someone to lend you books! But she doesn't really like books that much and it kind of irritate me she acts that way. But maybe, there's a reason for it throughout the book. Just like what her librarian friend on a remark on The Secret Garden, "Mary Lennox has her flaws, yes. But that's part of what makes her story so satisfying." We shouldn't really judge right away. "She grows a lot over the course of the book," she added and that makes me think of really good books that have dull beginnings but boomed before it ends and ends up we don't want to finish them right away.

One time in their conversation, what the librarian said got me. After Harriet, said she likes movies better than books because it's tough to read, she said "I suppose they're not at all different, are they? Just different ways to tell stories." Few pages before the ending, Pearl the Librarian and Harriet got into another book talk. When Harry said that the book got her thinking, Pearl replied "A book can surprise you that way," and this, I think, is the truest thing in the story.

Here's the most important lesson I learned from the story: "It's okay to be sad and scared sometimes, but I promise you're not alone. We're all in this together."

I received this E-ARC via Lerner Publishing Group and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I’ve seen so many great reviews for this graphic novel, but honestly, I was rather underwhelmed and found myself at the end wondering if I’d only read a partial manuscript (I hadn’t). I appreciated the author’s intent to honor the librarians who impacted her life, but the amount of page space given to discussing classic book recommendations left the already clunky plot lines with no room to breathe. The art work was cute and I loved the MS representation (though I worry readers without prior knowledge might not recognize it), but I was missing the emotional core and clear plot line I needed to give a positive review.

Sincerely, Harriet is the story of a young girl in the 1990s who has just moved to Chicago in the heat of the summer, but is stuck at home while her parents work not knowing anyone. She is incredibly lonely and the two friends she is writing from her summer camp are not responding to any of her postcards. She also has an active imagination creating stories for the world around her yet having a hard time differentiating fact from fiction. She starts a relationship with Pearl, the older woman who lives downstairs, and is told of Pearl's son Nick who had been quarantined in the house during an outbreak of Polio in the 1950s. We also learn that Harriet suffers from MS.

I had a difficult time with this book. The fact that Harriet deals with a chronic illness drew me to the book, but it wasn't even mentioned until half-way through and she doesn't seem to be dealing with it very well. The "unrequited crush" is barely even touched upon as it appears that she had a crush on one of the two girls from camp who won't write her back. I was shocked at how little time her parents spent with her, how little they knew her, and how they really didn't seem to take the time to help her figure out what was going on. Pearl was an interesting character who kept recommending various books to Harriet to perhaps help her with her situation, but Harriet only actually read one of them. Great concept, but it simply fell flat.

Sincerely, Harriet
by Sarah Winifred Searle
Lerner Publishing Group
Graphic Universe ™
Comics & Graphic Novels , Middle Grade
Pub Date 01 Jan 2019


I am reviewing a copy of Sincerely, Harriet Through Lerner Publishing Group and Netgalley:



It‘s the summer of 1996 and Harriet Flores is suffering through a long hot summer while trying at first to hide symptoms of a Chronic Illness, one she and her family would later learn was Multiple Sclerosis. She’s lonely after moving to Chicago.


To cope with the boredom of that summer Harriet uses her imagination which sometimes gets her into trouble and she makes up fantastical tales and wonders if there are ghosts upstairs.


One of their neighbors Pearl, encourages Harriet to read and write causing her to have a breakthrough.


I give Sincerly, Harriet five out of five star!


Happy Reading!

I was blown away by how amazing this book was! I am so happy that I got a chance o review it before publication. I cannot wait to buy a copy for my Library. I loved learning about Harriet and her life. She spends a great deal of time inside, so her life may not seem very interesting. However, the intricacies of her summer vacation are riveting, and the message is amazing for young people, and even us not-so-young people as well!

I cannot wait for the next book from this author!

I received a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Harriet Flores is a sweet girl suffering from boredom as summer passes by.
She also just moved to Chicago with her parents, so she knows no one, and spends her time watching movies, writing to her camp friends, and with Pearl, the sweet lady downstairs who tries to encourage her to do more.

With her great and expanding imagination, she creates stories about the ghost that lives in the top floor - what do they have in there? -, the evil mailman - who barks back and glares at dogs??! -.

All the while, struggling to manage her illness.

Sarah wrote a great story, with nice characters and a great background! It's the first time I see Nicholas and Harriet's 'invisible disabilities' being shown in a stance like this, with colours, and nice character, in a way that teens can read and see a bit for themselves how Harriet can still live while having MS, but it still affects her life. Besides how Nicholas has his own life as well!

It's a great read, easy read, emotional read. I recommend it!

Spoilers ahead:







While I have not suffered the challenges of chronic illness, I've spoken to others who have... and isolation is one of the worst parts of this, I hear. To experience adolescence in the first place, never mind MS, is not the easiest of tasks. Sarah Winifred Searle illustrates these woes (literally and figuratively) in a beautiful way, with lots of focus on the quiet times between the "everything else" that is going on in life.

Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. Harriet Flores recently moved to Chicago with her family. It's still the summer, so she doesn't have an easy way to connect with new people. Even worse, her old friends from summer camp aren't responding to her letters. Harriet's parents are both settling in at new jobs, working lots of hours, and she's left feeling very lonely.

Over the course of the book, Harriet builds a relationship with Mrs. Pearl, her downstairs neighbor. They connect over books, writing, but also over living with chronic illness -- it turns out that Harriet has MS, while Mrs. Pearl's son had polio back in the 1950s.

I loved how bits of information about Harriet were revealed slowly. At first, she seems to just be a sullen teenager with a tendency to tell lies. But as more of her experiences come to light, you can see that Harriet is desperate for some genuine connection, especially someone she can relate to about her illness. There are some great literary references, but apart from maybe recognizing titles, I'm not sure many students would make the connections. I loved the artwork -- it was comforting and added a lightness to a story that otherwise could be depressing. Overall, this is a strong title that I would recommend.

Wow, this story took a turn I didn't expect. At first it bothered me a bit that I didn't know where the story would go and that Harriet was being so difficult with everything. But little by little I finally understood her character and her story.
This might be only the second time in all of my reading life that I read a story with a protagonist that lives with a chronic illness. It was really interesting to learn a bit more about MS and check my privilege once again. At the end, I really liked how the story took its time evolving, following a natural life-like rhythm, and how books had such an impact here. I'm really glad I picked this up.

This was a sweet, yet thought provoking story of a young girl struggling between school, chronic illness, and making friends in a new city. The portrayal of MS came across positively, at least in the eyes of someone who doesn't suffer from it, and I loved the friendship between Harriet and Pearl, the old lady who lives downstairs. This was a very important, touching story.

This book follows Harriet as she adjusts to life in Chicago. Harriet is desperate for friends and to find acceptance among her peers but desperately scared those things won't happen. It was a bit one note for me with not a lot of context, but I'd consider it a nice slice of life from the perspective of this character.