Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC of this book.

I saw Hope Larson and thought this would be another middle-grade graphic novel, but it's a YA mix of mostly prose with some artwork and comics thrown in. Young adult me probably would have loved this book, but grown=up me was rolling my eyes and annoyed that Larson once again values romantic relationships over platonic friendships.

Pros:
-I loved the structure of the book, told with diary entries and drawings
-This is definitely Larson's strongest artistic work. She has comics with her signature cartoony style (although more refined than the Eagle Rock series I'm familiar with), and also more realistic art
-The honest teenage overdramatic emotion is real

Cons:
-Although a YA book, it reads very much like a middle-grade with cuss words

Questionable (Spoilers):
-The treatment of Landry. She was Christine's best friend until a fight and fall-out. Later, Landry is having a hard time and instead of sticking up for her and maybe giving their friendship a second chance, Christine is just like "Nope, I don't need her in my life anymore." I get it. That's a good message to have for truly toxic people, but her friend was hurting and Christine just brushed that aside because she was happy with her boyfriend. Okay. Teenagers do make stupid decisions though. And maybe I should have read their friendship as more toxic...

Either way, I'm disappointed that, in the majority of Larson's work I've read, the message is "Get yourself a boyfriend to be happy."

Very much a 90s vibe. It’s was like reading an episode of Daria. Would definitely recommend, a very quick read.

As soon as I started Christine's journal, I was invested and finished it in two days. It's a gem of a book mixing both prose and art in journal format. The artwork is exceptional. Its diversity kept me needing to flip the pages. The story was engaging, raw and a realistic portrayal of a year in an American high school teen girl's life back in the mid-90s. Christine pushes through the year dealing with grief from family loss as well as the familiar teenage challenges from friendships, dating and falling-in-love.

As someone who was a teen in the 90s, I loved being taken back there. It could be challenging for newer generations to relate to fads, music and ideologies from almost thirty years ago, but I imagine those teen-feelings accompanying learning about yourself and struggling to find your place in relationships while being in a hurry to grow up ring true in any decade.

Truly enjoyed BE THAT WAY and I'll be checking out the author's other books. Hope Larson is both a talented author and illustrator.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
*REVIEW IS SPOILER FREE*

Themes: Growing Up, Changing
Representation: LGBT side characters
Content Warnings: Alcohol/Drugs, Toxic relationships, Death (minor)

Premise: It’s 1996 and Christine is 17. She vows to be a newer, “shiner” version of herself this year. However, things don’t go according to plan as Christine has to navigate friendship, university, and love.


Characters


Okay, I’m going to try and see if I can do a bit more of an informal review so this might end up being slightly on the shorter side. Yeah, I guess I finished my last exam of the year today (whoo!) so now I can review more books before summer school starts. (Boo physics.)

Anyways, since we’re getting off track but let’s talk about characters. Personally, I know the main character is supposed to be relatable. However, I cannot relate to her. However, this is just a me-being-”boring”-and-not-really-having-any-high-school-experiences problem since I am RARELY able to fully relate to a teenage character in a book, no offense. Also, I’m a 17-year-old 30 years into the future and not in 1996 and I’m Canadian so yeah, things are definitely different.

However, focusing more on Christine’s internal thoughts, I think it is pretty accurate to the teenage experience. I liked how her thoughts were experienced and there were moments where I was like, I felt that especially when it comes to her relationship with Landry.

My favourite thing is that even if this was supposed to be a more realistic story, you can clearly see Christine’s (albeit messy) character development. She recognizes her mistakes and faults and that she deserves to pave her own path and make those changes.

In terms of other characters, I felt like they were well-represented and relatable. We all know a Landry, someone whose life is messy and who has been through a lot. We all know a Paul, a sweet friend. We all know someone or have heard of someone like Whit, someone who isn’t what they seem.

The only thing I wished there was more of was a bit more diving into the nuances and backstories of the other characters as well as a better introduction of some side characters. However, I do understand that we are mostly limited to Chrisinte’s point of view and that if you were to write a journal/diary, you’d just refer to people by name without really giving much of a backstory.

But, overall, a nice representation of the characters.

Rating: 4/5


Plot


I think I’m going to forfeit reviewing the plot for this one since there isn’t much of one. All I will say is that the journal narrative felt realistic and even though there were sometimes weird and random tidbits, everything connected to the bigger picture and character development. And as someone who keeps a journal, it felt fairly realistic to how I’d write in my journal.


Style


The style of this book is amazing! Absolutely stunning! Gorgeous!

First, let’s talk more about writing-type things which include the diction and themes and stuff.

In terms of diction, I think the writing style was realistic to what a teenager would write in their most personal diary, simple, to the point, with an emphasis on thoughts. As for themes, I thought they were well-explored. And finally, we have a smattering of pop culture references. Now, I’m not a 90s kid and I even had to Google some of them but, I felt like they were perfect for the story. Plus, I’m sure all you 90s kids will love it.

Now, let’s talk about the art which is absolutely *chef’s kiss.* Not only does the author have gorgeous, gorgeous illustrations, but she also uses a variety of styles! And she does this quite well as well which showcases her amazing talent. Like, even if you’re not the biggest fan of the story, you have to stay for the art because it is beautiful.

Finally, in terms of formatting, I loved how the author incorporated different styles of formatting in the book, including comics, writing, images, and full-scale drawings. I thought it was especially unique.

Rating: 5/5


Final Rating


Characters: 4/5
Plot: N/A
Formatting: 5/5
Final Rating: 4.5/5 (round to 5 stars)
Personal Rating: 4/5

Date Read: June 23rd, 2023
Date Reviewed: June 23rd, 2023

Having been a 90s teen, this YA graphic novel done diary style felt authentic. Christine deals with friendships, crushes, first boyfriends and finding herself.

I would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. As someone who grew up and was in high school in the mid-late 90's, this coming of age graphic novel spoke to me. I enjoyed the diary format and the art that went with it. I feel like Christine and I would have been friends.

A great read for 30 year olds looking to look back on their younger years. The change in format from journal to graphic novel to related art was a little choppy to me, others may greatly enjoy it.

(I received this comic from the editor and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)
Hope Larson’s Be That Way is an enormous work that depicts the teenager years of our main character, Christine. Her dream, as it sometimes is, is to become popular like her best friend Landry, a mission that will make her take some good and also bad decisions in her comic-of-age story.

What I did not expect was to find Christine’s diary in written form, and only sometimes accompanied by some pictures. Let me explain: this is not your typical graphic novel. The fact is that it is more a book than a comic. I had a hard time with the diary style, completely sure it was just like an intro into the comic itself. It did feel deep and very detailed, but I would have liked it more if it was, indeed, shown as a graphic novel.

It was an okay book in my opinion, it wasn’t my favourite but also not something ai disliked entirely, it was extremely well written and felt like an actual diary but I think that’s why I didn’t like it.

I request an eARC of this book because I love coming-of-age stories and graphic novels. I loved the book, but it is not a graphic novel – it does have a lot of drawings and some comics within but it is more like a fictional diary where the main character also draws, which I honestly enjoyed a lot (I just want to make sure the future readers know what to expect).

The story follows Christine, a teenager in the mids-90s navigating through high school, family, friends and some romantic entanglements. Christine is the one telling it, and the tone is very relatable: all the teen angst and the embarrassment. I am a 90s baby, so I grew up in the 2000s, but I saw a lot of my younger self in her. And I enjoyed watching her grow more confident in who she wants to be as a person (and who is worthy of her company). Plus, the fact that she is an artsy person who also likes to write. Like, that is me.

When it comes to the drawings, the thing I loved the most was the diversity of formats and styles. Abstract, realistic, some in black and white, others super colourful, doodles, entire comic strips, there’s something of everything, and some pieces are absolutely mesmerising. Honestly, I would reread this just to look at the drawings again.

*Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review*

During the first 15-20% I was unsure of how I felt about it. But once I got into the story and the art style, I was really loving it.

Following Christine for a year during high school and seeing her go through relationship struggles—platonic and romantic—was really interesting and fun. The way Christine is written, the way she talks, thinks, acts, feels quite realistic.
And like any other teenager, she grows up and matures a lot in the span of a year. It’s so clear that she’s gotten older and found herself a little more by the end of the book.

I think the ending was fairly predictable. That being said, it was fun seeing how things played out. And the pacing was really nice, I never felt that something was dragging out or that something was rushed.

It being set in the 90s was fun, I kept getting slight Lizzie McGuire vibes!

Also (!) there’s some really amazing drawings that I enjoyed a lot.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley, I hadn’t heard anything about this book but I wanted to give it a go because the synopsis intrigued me. I really enjoyed this book, the story was great and the illustrations were phenomenal. I honestly could see this book as a movie and when I can see a book as a movie you know that means I’ve really enjoyed the book! I haven’t read very many comic books/graphic novels but I really loved this one and would definitely recommend it to anyone even if they don’t usually read comic books, it was a really fun and quick read that makes me want to start reading more comics/graphic novels. I loved the 90s vibes in this book too, I really enjoy books set in different decades. This book also covered important topics such as grief, friendships, breakups, love - the way that all of these topic were fleshed out was really well done. And can we just talk about the illustrations in this book, they were INCREDIBLE! The colours, the details, the style, I absolutely loved it all!
I gave this book 4.5 stars, I really recommend it to anyone who wants a fast paced, fun and entertaining read! Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

I’m a 90s baby, but a 2000s kid and this book proved that to me. I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t recognize most of the references, but that doesn’t mean I enjoyed it any less!

“the way we treat books is seriously messed up. We chloroform them and cut them open and look at the strange tender organs that make them live, and in the process, kill ’em dead. What kind of way is that to act toward something beautiful?”

Christine is a teenager in the mid 90s. Like every other teen, she’s navigating through high school, friendships, siblings, romantic relationships, betrayals and breakups. She just wants to be that IT girl that everyone notices and wants to be friends with. Didn’t we all?

This story was so relatable-thinking our friends are prettier than us, hating our bodies, realizing said friends are not worth our time, feeling like we don’t fit in, being insecure about everything-all very teenagey.

I absolutely loved that this was told via journal entries and illustrations-it was like reading my own teen diary! The 90s grunge vibes were on point and really pulled you in to the time setting. The illustrations were seriously beautiful and some were honestly, therapeutic.

I throughly enjoyed this fast paced, feel good, coming of age story!

Mid-90's journal of a teenage girl

I loved the journal format, but it took a few pages to get used to. I was expecting more of a graphic novel, and there are illustrations but it's mostly text.

Christine wants to be the cool, popular girl and makes a New Year's Resolution to become that girl.

Discussion of issues teenage girls face - cutting/self harm, breakups, crushes, sick days, finding something to wear, fashion, going to the movies, friends, drama with friends, and more.

It took me a little bit to get into this book, but once I got into it, I loved it! The main character was so relatable. I loved the diary entries. They all showed teenage life in a realistic way without seeming judgmental about the issues that teenagers go through. Often, books about teenagers seem like they are written from an adult perspective looking down on kids, but this book did not do that, which I really appreciated.