This was an absolutely adorable graphic novel. The art is adorable and I loved the characters. The story felt very realistic and the characters were very real. This is definitely one I often recommend.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me free access to the digital advanced copy of this book.

Life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be in HS. Friends move on and Winifred needs to find her place without them. She struggles with an eating disorder and anxiety, which she hides from her mother and her new friends. She finds a release in the Zine she draws, with the help of her friend and crush Oscar. He and Winifred and their friend April each struggle with identity and figuring out who they are and how to fit in. The author has taken some of her own personal experiences and written and drawn them in the poignant Graphic Novel. Teens will relate to these characters.

Here's what I wrote in my Goodread Review at https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4200608188

This is obviously an autobiographical book about a struggling young artist finding her voice. It deals with struggles of eating disorders and loneliness, LGBTQ issues and having to make new friends when the old ones leave you. It's also clearly written for a younger audience than myself :-)

Winifred begins her sophomore year of high school feeling very alone after her two best friends transfer to a private school. She reconnects with an old friend, Mathilda “Tilly” Martel, and makes fast friends with April and Oscar, two students whose photography class overlaps with Win’s independent study period. The trio bonds over music, pop culture, and especially creating a limited edition zine together. Despite these positives, Win wrestles with deep anxiety, self-esteem and body image issues, and disordered eating. For example, she’s lactose intolerant but indulges in ice cream to punish herself for enjoying food. She also struggles with an emerging crush on Tilly … or maybe Oscar? … and wonders if “a relationship would fill the hole that ache[s] in my chest all the time.” Win’s self-loathing spirals into self-harm, when her guidance counselor steps in and recommends professional help. This thoughtful, sensitive graphic novel features softly shaded artwork (created in Clip Studio Paint) that complements Win’s moods and emotions. In particular, the red-tinted darkroom provides a safe space for Win, April, and Oscar to reveal their vulnerabilities. There is so much to savor in The Greatest Thing. Readers will embrace Win’s exploration of her identity, her relationships, and her artwork. Potentially triggering content is handled with great care, and Sarah Winifred Searle includes a list of resources at the close of the book.

A fictionalized memoir, The Greatest Thing follows Winifred as she starts the school year after her two closest friends go to a different school. Winifred is talented, creative, and plagued by anxiety. Uncomfortable with her body, she engages in habits like "tricking" her body into "forgetting it was hungry by making it sick". When she meets new friends April and Oscar, her world opens up: the three friends love art and also deal with self-esteem and anxiety; together, the three find their voices by creating a zine, Gutterglimmers. Eventually, Winifred - with the help of her supportive mom - seeks help, and starts finding comfort in real life as well as the pages of her zine. Filled with helpful instructions on making a zine, and positive portrayals of nonbinary and pansexual characters, The Greatest Thing provides an honest and raw look into adolescent anxiety and depression, and the role art can play in working through emotions and feelings. If you haven't purchased this book for your YA graphic novels collections yet, you really should.

It’s the first day of sophomore year, and now that Winifred’s two best (and only) friends have transferred to a private school, she must navigate high school on her own.

A wonderful, beautiful graphic novel exploring friendship, mental health, and self-expression. After Winifred's best friend transfers to private school, she must make new ones. Fortunately, Oscar and April immediately take to her and recognize her individuality, talent, and worth. Unfortunately, Winifred is struggling with confidence, body image, and seeing herself as loveable.

Through their budding friendship, Winifred, Oscar, and April all grow as young adults learning to exist, set boundaries, and love. Through collaborating on a zine and embracing fandoms, they learn to allow themselves be themselves. As Winifred grows in herself, she realizes she's ready to rekindle an old friendship, which may be more.

Brilliant and emotional graphic novel. Winifred's struggles were deeply touching and relatable. I especially loved the way that Sarah Searle draws eyes. It made everything hit a little harder.

I received an advanced copy of The Greatest Thing through Netgalley so I could share my review with you!

Content Warning: eating disorders, depression, anxiety, and self-harm (all dealt with very sensitively).

Winifred has lost her two best friends- the two people she didn’t think she could live without- when they transferred to a private school, leaving her to face sophomore year alone. Though she fears that she will spend all of high school as a loner, it isn’t long until she meets Oscar and April, forming a brand-new friend trio. Her new friends are nothing like the ones who left, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Between sneaking Oscar into sleepovers, making zines, and surviving high school, Winifred feels more and more like herself. But Winifred has a lot to discover about herself before she can fully embrace these new relationships.

You can get your copy of The Greatest Thing now from First Second Books!

This book captures the feelings of being an insecure high school student viscerally, bringing power into the narrative. Though the story deals with some tough topics (check the content warning above) it does so in a delicate and sensitive way, which was vital to telling the story. My favorite part of this book was the inclusion of the character-made zines, which added a depth to the story that I adored. Watching Winifred’s story play out alongside her zine’s story brought individuality and life to the characters.

My Recommendation-
If you enjoy classic growing-up, self-discovery stories, you should pick up a copy of The Greatest Thing! I would especially recommend this book to fans of Drama and My Last Summer with Cass.

Beautiful graphic novel for a younger audience, about learning to be and accept yourself. Winifred is a Sophomore, her friends have just transferred schools, and she is all alone. So the year is off to bad start. When her art teacher offers her a chance to so an independent study she meets Oscar and April.

Winifred's story is the driving force of the novel, her battles with depression, questioning her sexuality, and self-image. Her friends stories are weaved throughout, and a little teenage love thrown in, but this story is really about the struggles you go through in high school and learning who you are along the way.

Couldn't get the file to download. I love the comps, and it think this book fills an age transition not currently being served by graphic novels. Super bummed I couldn't read it

Loved the story and the gorgeous art! I was feeling all the feels while reading this one :') Sarah Winifred Searle has such a wonderful talent for both art and storytelling, and I cannot wait to read more from them!

It's always difficult when a semi-autobio story doesn't click, because criticizing it seems like criticizing the author's life. Searle's art style is stodgy, solid, competent but flat, without life or movement. It's like flipping through a photo album, which makes it difficult to get caught up in the story. (I also found the use of deep lavender for shadows odd, as it made everyone look like they were wearing purple earbuds all the time.)

That story is admirable for showing a young woman anxious over her size and eating disorder, but those important subjects are talked around instead of faced. I'm sure that's realistic -- the teenage lead spends a lot of time avoiding all kinds of things -- but just because it's real doesn't make it a good read. I wanted more story, more purpose, more lessons learned. I also wished that the supporting cast were more than two-dimensional, as I didn't have a good sense of their motivations or desires. I would be leery of giving this book to a younger reader, as it shares a nebulous anxiety without much resolution.

This is a fairly realistic tale. The characters find each other and develop a quick friendship, each being a kind of outsider uncomfortable with themselves and desperate to be accepted by the world. And Searle address real orld issues of perception and negative self-talk., the things in which we place value. A solid read that fills a real need in a particular community of kids.

Winifred is a sophomore student. Her two best friends transferred to another school, and now she’s alone. She meets Oscar and April, and they make a zine together.

The Greatest Thing is a beautiful and tender YA graphic novel, a coming-of-age story that deals with identity, friendship, and love. It contains a few sensitive topics, like anxiety, self-harm, depression, and low self-esteem.

The graphic is beautiful, colored, and the illustrations are in the same style as on the cover. I would recommend this graphic novel to all YA who like to read about friendships and love in graphic novels.

Thanks to First Second Books for the ARC and this opportunity! This is a voluntary review, and all opinions are my own.

Does a story about making new friends, navigating young love and struggling with body image issues, all while developing a voice as an artist and story teller sound intriguing? This is what I found in this heartfelt YA graphic novel ‘The Greatest Thing’ by @swinsea published by @01firstsecond, which I previewed on #NetGalley (publish date 02/08/22).

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Winifred is introverted, full of drawing talent, painfully shy at times, and full of self doubt. When the first day of sophomore year rolls around Winifred’s two best friends have transferred to private school. Feeling left behind, she worries about finding her place. That doesn’t take long, and soon she connects with Oscar and April. They quickly become very tight, having secret sleepovers and even beginning a zine together, with Oscar writing the story, Winifred illustrating and April publishing. The zine impresses everyone, which immediately triggers Oscar’s anxiety and Winifred’s self-doubt. In addition, April has a tricky family situation, Oscar is struggling with his mental health and Winifred has secrets from both her friends she can barely admit to herself. When Oscar transfers to a different school and Winifred has a huge fight with April, Winifred has to decide if she can be honest with herself for the first time.
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I requested ‘The Greatest Thing’ as a part of the research I am doing for an upcoming workshop on graphic novels at our district conference. The complicated emotions of the characters shine in the simple graphics, the uncluttered panels and the muted colour scheme. The use of colour and close ups to draw attention to specific situations was incredibly well done. The story itself is heart warming and difficult - a story for all of us that felt we didn’t quite fit in during high school. Winifred’s struggle with her body image is a hard one to read, and while it isn’t resolved (like life, it’s in process), the importance of counselling, medication and having an outlet are highlighted. Mental health is a prevalent theme, as is the process of figuring out your sexuality. A YA graphic novel you could put in a middle classroom, I enjoyed this one and will be recommending it to for classroom libraries once it is published. Thanks to #NetGalley for the ARC.
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#diverseteensbooks
#diverseYA
#weneeddiversebooks
#teenbookrecommendations
#middleschoolreads
#LGBTQYA
#fatphobia
#bodypositivity

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This story has a full and solid cast of characters who are all read and I’d love to spend more time with them; I think that this universe would make a great cartoon series. I can’t explain why, but as I was reading there were moments where I felt like I was missing something, but I wasn’t. At the end of the book there weren’t any unanswered questions, but it was definitely more open ended than I would’ve liked for something that I know to be a standalone book.

Overall, I did enjoy my time reading this story; I thought the friendships explored were lovely and it was very easy to get attached to these characters. The Greatest Thing touches on a lot of real, sensitive, and important topics and Searle handled them beautifully. April is a tad abrasive at times but it compliments Win’s passivity well, so it works out (Winifred has a tendency to let life happen to her and April does a good job of happening to Win). I truly do hope that we get to see these characters again; I think that they have more stories in them.

Read this in one sitting, and OOF, that's a whole lot of high school feelings to pack in. The publisher's copy describes this as a good choice for Raina Telgemeier fans looking to level up to their first YA read, and I actually think that's a solid description. There's some relationship angst of the are-we-going-out? variety, but for the most part it's a book about the intense friendships you can make and lose very quickly in high school. Not all of the experiences in the book were the same as mine (I escaped without an eating disorder, thank god) but it felt VERY true to life and raw, which makes sense given the author's note which says it's based on Searle's own high school experience. Warning for depictions of eating disorders, depression and self-harm, but for what it's worth I think they're all done sensitively.

I loved this so much. This story was so sweet and comforting. i can’t reccomend this book enough! If you want a cute read. This is definitely for you!