This is a graphic novel following the story of a teenage girl named Raquel who experiences her life with her friends and her mom. She has a crush on a girl, her senior, and later her friend as they got to know each other because of the theater troupe they attended.

The narrative was like that secret diary you write for your crush with proses which is cute. But to be honest, I feel like the story is bland and not engaging enough for me. The black and white illustration makes it more monotonous. The only part I like is how the author picture the struggle someone has when they discover their sexuality. Still, I would recommend this book to those who like a coming-of-age graphic novel.

"Pardalita" is a piece of fiction that defies genres : it mixes prose, poetry and drawings (simple, black and white ones, which I very much appreciated).

It narrates the first love feelings of a Portuguese girl for another one. It is very delicate and also funny, although I found the end a bit abrupt.
We can see how the main character struggles with her sexual orientation in a society that, to my understanding, is still a bit narrow-minded on the subject. I would've liked to follow her a bit further, discover if and when she finds the strength to come out to her family and friends.

I was very happy to read some Portuguese fiction, as I hardly had the opportunity of doing in the past. I'll surely read something else from the author if the occasion arises.

Thanks to Netgalley and to the Publisher for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book was so good. The illustrations are magnificent. The story itself was amazing. This is something that a lot of people can relate to. It being about a girl trying to find out who she is and who she loves while having this crush. I would read this book again and again.

Beautiful in drawing style and prose, Pardalita captured me with its genre mix, which makes it for an original read in which poetry, prose and visual storytelling combine to depict a first sapphic love. I really liked it!

The simple illustrations spoke volumes through its depiction of a teenager's life and her coming to terms with her self. I loved the journal entries and poems smattered through out.

I would recommend this anyone who is interested in graphic novels.

Thank you #NetGalley, Levine Querido and Em Querido for giving me the opportunity to read this!

This was a pretty standard queer coming-of-age graphic novel until it got closer to the end of the story. The end is where the story really shined. I loved the quiet and slow way that everything developed and grew towards a conclusion. I loved the sparse artwork and the limited color palette.

I love this graphic novel. I love it so much that there will never be enough reasons why I love it so much!

Is there good illustrations or perfect artwork? I wouldn’t say yes.

Is there some wholesome perfect cute romance and like? No, I won’t say yes.

Is the narrator someone who we all will love and would call them a perfect 10?! Well, I doubt it.

But I will say the character is as flawed as we are. No matter how hard we try to be the best version of ourselves, people aren’t perfect.

The writing? Well, you will love them as much as I did as they are filled with poetry and short and whimsically realistic.

Will I ever be writing a perfect book review for the best books I have ever read? I doubt it will ever happen.

You will find the most random thoughts in the reviews of my most favourite books like this one. For sure.

Thank you, Levine Querido, for the advance reading copy. Hopefully I have convinced people to pick this book when it comes out. If not, my review is going to be the culprit. But they should know what a cool realistic graphic novel looks like. Am so bad at being sassy. Well, I tried to be the main character. And she does fails like I do. [Damn you, good book]

Unique, beautifully illustrated and beautifully described this felt like a coming of age story anyone would love.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Cute coming of age graphic novel about a girl who develops an infautation for a girl called Pardalita, she's angsty about it because in her mind it's something unrequited, which is and understandable reaction when finding out you might like someone of the same sex and is even more troublesome when that person is your friend or becomes your best friend.

While i liked the subtle exploration of Raquel's feelings and showing a bit about her family, specially his mom (it was funny to see the "New to internet mom makes her FB all about dog adoptions/activism pipeline 'cause it was like seeing my mom's social media journey lol) and her friend, i feel it ended abruptly and lacked more pages showing how Raquel dealt with the turn of events and if her mother ever found out.

Still, it was a cute, tender read.

Beautiful lgbtq coming of age story told through elements of prose in a graphic novel. This is one of those books that I wish was longer to gain a more in depth knowledge of the love that the narrator has for Pardalita, but the ending...I don't want to say anymore. I think this book is appropriate for teens and up and would be a great story to share with adolescents who recently came out as a member of the lgbtq community..

Read read readen.

My favorite quote: “We have a new student teacher in Portuguese class. She’s nice. She was talking with me about my essay and said that I should become a writer. I laughed. I thought of telling her that at this moment I’m writing only one letter: P. Maybe later my interest will expand to the rest of the alphabet.

Here I confess: I am Portuguese. I have the Portuguese edition of this book and, when I saw this advanced copy, I thought: I must read/reread it.

I've been a fan of Joana Estrela since I read the children's book Menino, Menina (My Own Way: Celebrating Gender Freedom for Kids, in the English version), and I love how she addresses issues such as gender and sexuality with such subtlety and strength at the same time.

This queer coming-of-age graphic novel (it's actually more of an illustrated diary) invites us to follow Raquel's journey of self-discovery. The main character is this sixteen-year-old Portuguese teenager with a boyfriend, good friends, and a secret crush.

The story focuses on her life, with her friends, her mother (a fierce fighter for refugee rights) and her boyfriend, while she questions herself and her feelings. The setting is Portuguese (which I really love, because I know, if not all, most of the places featured), and the prose is very lyrical and figurative, which I find exquisite.

I hope Joana Estrela keeps writing and creating stories like this one.

Pardalita is a sweet and relatable story of queer love that brought me back to high school. I love how Raquel’s immediate experiences and influences tie into her thinking and the poetic phrases which pop up every ten pages or so. My favorite quote: “We have a new student teacher in Portuguese class. She’s nice. She was talking with me about my essay and said that I should become a writer. I laughed. I thought of telling her that at this moment I’m writing only one letter: P. Maybe later my interest will expand to the rest of the alphabet.”

(This review is based on an advanced reader’s copy provided by NetGalley.)

3 stars for the first 85%, 4 stars for the last 15%.

Most of this felt like a decent but fairly standard slice-of-life queer coming-of-age book. Other than the Portuguese setting, not much stood out to me (and there isn’t a very strong sense of setting for most of the book). Most of it is just a bunch of little vignettes (often in verse) about the mundane details of Raquel’s daily life at school and home. The love interest is sort of opaque — I didn’t get a strong sense of who she is as a person — but maybe that’s deliberate; maybe the point of the book is simply Raquel’s internal feelings, and the specific person who inspires those feelings is almost incidental (even though the book is named after her).

There were mainly two standout parts for me:

1) The parts most directly addressing Raquel’s sexuality. Even the most direct parts still sort of talked around it, which some readers may find frustrating, but which really resonated with me. I loved the vignette titled “And what if?”, in which Raquel wonders if she’s queer without ever actually saying it:
But maybe I’m not even.
How does a person know they are?
Is there a test?

Her questioning feels so delicate and tender and vulnerable that she won’t even allow herself to think the words. (Though, to be clear, I wouldn’t say there’s any severe internalized homophobia. She’s nervous and uncertain, but she doesn’t seem self-loathing.) I wanted to a) hug her and b) send her the Lesbian Masterdoc!

2) The last 15%. There’s still not a lot of plot here, it’s still quiet and slice-of-life, but it’s lovely.

I don’t have much of a vocabulary for visual art, but I would describe the art as mostly simple, spare, black-and-white line drawings. Much of it felt kind of workmanlike to me (though again, I’m not a very knowledgeable commentator on this kind of thing), but the art in the last 15% won me over. I was impressed by how evocative some of the art was — like, logically this is just a black scribble, but it really does look like a river at night.

Recommended for fans of Skim by Mariko Tamaki or Spinning by Tillie Walden.

A tender and emotive story, told through a combination of prose and poetry that winds together beautifully.

I got 26% through this book. It’s simply not engaging in the writing. The artwork does not make up for that. The story is progressing in no direction it seems. It looks like a slice of life which is unusual for a graphic novel. Graphic novels typically move quickly still they’re so short but not this.

A beautiful character study of a young woman figuring out who she is. Accompanying a friend to a theater audition, Raquel meets Pardalita, another teen her age who immediately catches her attention. The book reads like Raquel's diary, her daily thoughts, trying to understand her own feelings and the world around her.

Pardalita is a sweet slice of life story following Raquel, a 16 year old student, as she navigates the hardships of family life, high school, and falls in love with her classmate while working on a play together.
It was short, and very sweet and easy to read, The writing is almost lyrical and the art is simple but interesting, my favorite pages being those meant to be more representative than literal.
I would give this a 3.5 rounded up to 4. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.