This One Summer Review

So I tried to find another graphic novel to read and I stumbled into this graphic novel, This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki. I didn’t know that this is supposed to be the featured reading for the week until halfway reading this graphic novel. The thing that hooked me at first was the beauty of the graphic novel itself. The line drawing is simple and yet elegant to look at and for some reason I just decided to give it a shot.

The story revolves the life of Rose and Windy. Every summer, Rose and her family always spend their summer holiday in their summer cottage at Awago. In Awago, she had a childhood friend whom she always spends most of her summer time with. Though they always do that every summer, this year it was different. For some reason, this year Rose must have to face the fight that her parents have. Not only that, the fight is getting intense as she spent more time in the cabin. There was a moment that the fight gets heated up that Rose’s dad decided to take some time off the cabin and decided to be away for a few days. Not only that, not only her dad, her mom also, because of that fight, went through a withdrawal that really complicate Rose’s situation. Not only that, both Rose and Windy  are on the middle of the teenage romantic situation as Rose and Windy always goes to the DVD store where the group of teenagers always came by.  With all of these new experience on the parent fighting and the teenagers romantic love that ended up with a tragedy of the pregnancy, towards the end of her summer vacation, Rose realize that both the adults and the teenagers are also have a lot of problem and Rose and her family left the summer cottage.

Overall, this is quite an interesting graphic novel.  The story line is quite unique as it is more complicated than any other graphic novels that I read, in a way I guess it is more mature or it is just more of a slice of life. The interesting part is that since the main protagonist is supposedly Rose and Windy, the story of the supporting character like the parents and the bunch of the teenagers themselves are more interesting. I guess in this sense, we get to see the real drama from the points of view of the adolescence because aside from all the drama that is in the novels, Rose and Windy seems very oblivious about all that except for the parents fighting since it involves Rose herself. However, that did not stop them for having fun watching movies and do a lot of stuff that kids always do. even towards the end, it seems that Rose and Windy keep being passive towards the whole situation itself. What they do does not really change the situation to the better except for one of the teenagers who almost drowned by the sea because of the suicidal thoughts. Overall, the kids do not change a thing to the whole situation which is not a bad things to the novel. Because of that, I can see the real life of the adolescence kids, facing a real world situation I guess that is the beauty of it. It make us realize that there is more to the world than our own little world.

Overall this is an interesting read. The story might not had the satisfying ending like how the story usually flows, but it gives me another perspective on how to tell a story which is interesting. The drawing is beautiful and it is simple which makes it an easy read. I really enjoys this novel and I can’t wait to read other novel.