Terri Libenson's Emmie & Friends

The newest book in Terri Libenson's Emmie & Friends graphic novel series came out today, and after finishing it, I wanted to reread the older ones. I did reviews for the first four, but never got around to the fifth or sixth. The newest is the seventh. So instead of full reviews, I'm going to hit the highlights, which for me are Libenson's twists, so this whole post is spoilers.

These books blend graphic novel style with prose. They're typically split into two different PoVs that alternate. 

Invisible Emmie is the first and shortest of the books. 

PoV #1: Emmie

Format: Prose with some illustrations

Emmie is an incredibly shy girl. She was a surprise baby for her parents, so her two older siblings are already in college when she's still in middle school. Her parents work a lot, so she's quiet at home, too, though she mostly likes it that way. Emmie is an excellent artist. Her best friend Brianna is one of the class brains. One day, they decide to write goof love letters to their crushes, only Emmie drops hers and it's found by the school asshole. She endures a few class periods of teasing because he's shown it to a bunch of people. Brianna is mad at her because Emmie had both notes and Brianna freaks because what if Emmie had dropped hers? (Brianna is kind of a shit.) Emmie ends up snapping at asshole Joe and telling him to shut up at the same time Tyler, her crush and the subject of the love letter, does the same. Tyler and Emmie head down to art together and start to become friends. She also befriends a girl named Sarah who's also in art class. Emmie started the day with only one friend and ended it with three, as Brianna comes to apologize before the day is over. 

PoV #2: Katie

Format: Typical graphic novel panels

Katie is super popular and has the perfect life. She's not horrible, but she's pretty boring.

TWIST: Katie isn't real. She's a comic drawn by Emmie to depict a character that showed what she wanted to be more like. There's a hint early on when asshole Joe sees what she's drawing and says "Katie" but the assumption is that Emmie is drawing Katie. I love the end because Katie is standing outside Emmie's bus and she slowly turns invisible as Emmie, who's been slightly gray-toned for almost the entire comic, gains more color. Emmie's realized she can be how she wants to be or at least, she can take steps to be somewhat more like that. 

PoV #1: Izzy

Format: Illustrated prose

Izzy has trouble in school but loves drama. She's excited about performing in the talent show. She lives with her single mother, an overworked nurse, and her two sisters. The older one basically takes on the mom roles and the younger one is the charmer. When Izzy forgets to do a take home test, she's grounded by her mom, meaning she can't perform in the talent show. With help from her younger sis, she sneaks out. She ends up being caught but thanks to some well-timed family admissions, her mom lets her do the show. 

PoV #2: Brianna

Format: Comic panels

Brianna is Emmie's smart BFF from the first book. Her mom is the new drama teacher and she asks Bri to fill in for a sick student, giving her only a few hours to learn her scene. Her scene partner is a boy in some of her advanced classes and they end up bonding. Brianna comes out of her comfort zone to perform the scene with only minor bumps in the road. 

TWIST: Izzy is Brianna's mom. Izzy's chapters are set in the past. Some tidbits were added in to make this work, like Bri's dad saying they had teacher conferences on the same day since the 70s. The drama teachers past and present are both called Mrs. D, though you never see the past one, of course. It would give it away. Izzy has spot #5 in the performance list and Brianna is #6. Bri comments that the girl in spot #5 is really good and has props, which is just like Izzy. I really did not see this coming the first time I read it. 

PoV #1: Jaime

Format: Illustrated prose

Jaime is one of the gossip girls shown in the background of the first two graphic novels. She and the other one shown, who turns out to be Maya, don't exhibit much personality, aside from gossiping and singing poorly at the talent show. In her own story, Jaime is dumped by her friend group because she isn't "mature" enough for them. She deals with this over the span of a day, meets some new friends, realizes thing about herself both good and bad, and makes amends for her past behavior. 

PoV #2: Maya

Format: Comic panels

Maya is the blonde gossip girl and she's the one forced to dump Jaime by Celia, the bitchy group leader. Maya and Jaime were the two best friends, along with a third friend named Grace, who took Celia in when she was new. Celia is basically a Regina George. She's nasty and doesn't seem to have any redeeming qualities, so it's very hard to understand why Maya and Grace want her approval so badly. Part of the reason she wanted Jaime out was because Jaime always wanted to be "just Jaime" and didn't let her friends (namely Celia) force her to do anything she didn't want to. Basically, Celia couldn't control Jaime and she couldn't handle that. She was also interested in Anthony (Brianna's former crush), who was friends with Jaime but not Celia. So Maya dumps Jaime and then watches Celia still make comments about her ex-BFF behind her back. She calls Celia on it a few times and then Celia turns her attention to Grace, ignoring Maya. Maya eventually realizes she was wrong to want Celia's approval. Celia isn't a good person. And she was wrong to be mean to Jaime. She ends up going to Jaime's house at the end of the day to apologize. Jaime accepts, though she says it will take time. After summer, the girls are shown with Emmie, Brianna and Sarah, plus Anthony and Tyler. Anthony and Jaime seem to be a couple now and everyone is getting along well. 

TWIST: There really isn't one. The French teacher who helped Jaime when she was most upset told her a story about how she ghosted a friend because that friend made joking comments that were cruel. At the end, it turns out Jaime's mother was that friend and the two women meet in the same place as all the kids to reconnect. 

PoV #1: Brianna in the Past

Format: Illustrated prose

This section tells the story of how Bri's mom talks her into having a bat mitzvah. It begins eight months before the present day section and counts down until right before the day of the bat mitzvah. I'm not a big fan of Brianna and I remember being annoyed she got a book before Sarah. Sarah only just now got a book. She's the star of the most recent one. So yeah, still a little annoyed. Izzy's book was about Brianna's mom and Brianna, and now this one is the same because Izzy is in this a lot. Brianna struggles with learning Hebrew, with not wanting to be in the spotlight, with wondering why she's doing all this, and with a fight with Emmie. Emmie thinks Brianna's new cool girl friend Zoe is just using Bri for a bat mitzvah invite. Brianna stays mad at her for over a month until she finally sees that Emmie is right. With some help from Dev, who's my fave of the boys. Maybe he'll get a book next. 

PoV #2: Brianna in the Present

Format: Comic panels

This is the day of the bat mitzvah. Despite turmoil, Brianna gets through it all. The two cool girls show up after the service and then seem to suddenly realize how shitty that was and sit at the party uncomfortably until Brianna invites them to dance with her and her friends. I like Bri better after this book, but she's still far from my favorite and I don't think she needed two books practically to herself. What I like most about this one is that it takes place during the entire time period of the first three books. 

TWIST: There is none. 

PoV #1: Tyler

Format: Illustrated prose

The first book from a boy's point of view. This one takes place after winter break. Tyler and Emmie want to work on the art class comic book project together because they have fun in class, but balancing working on the comic with basketball practice before the big game becomes too much for Tyler to handle. His friends don't help much either. Anthony picks on him for his slacking on practice, while Joe and others tease him about Emmie. He works to improve his relationships with his dad and his older brother (the high school basketball star) while figuring out what to do about Emmie and how to balance his newfound love of art with his love of basketball. 

PoV #2: Emmie

Format: Comic panels

Emmie is thrilled Tyler still wants to be friends with her after not seeing each other over break. When she starts seeing Sarah picked on and then herself targeted as some sort of "downgrade" for Tyler, who formerly dated bitchy Celia, she decides to improve herself. I had hoped for something better for Emmie's second PoV, but she was kinda sheltered before so I guess she had to learn the "be yourself" lesson. I was very annoyed when she pushed Sarah away for her own self-preservation and I don't think she apologized to her enough. 

This one seems a bit out of place. Brianna's book covers the same time period the first three books cover, but Tyler's goes backward to before Jaime's. 

TWIST: Sadly none. This one had an added bonus of the comic pages drawn by Tyler and the pages drawn by Emmie. At the end, there are pages drawn by both of them. So I guess I'll take a fun comic over a twist this time, but it's sad to be twistless so many times in a row.

PoV #1: Ruby

Format: Illustrated prose

Ruby has been in the background of every previous book. I think. I'm pretty sure anyway. She's known for some IBS issues that have her always bolting to the bathroom and has only been referred to as Baked Bean Girl before. She's in seventh grade like the rest of the characters and is a bit of a failure at social skills. She ends up joining the brand new poetry club after winning the prize at the Student Showcase (as seen in Tyler's book). There, she meets Leah, who becomes a new friend. I liked Leah a lot and she kinda disappears midway through the story, which is disappointing. Ruby also makes friends with Juan, a comical boy who loves both art and poetry. At the talent show, he reveals his crush on a boy and she realizes that if he shared that big a secret with her that he must trust her and consider her a friend. Ruby performs her poem about missing Mia, an eighth-grader she used to be friends with for a long time. 

PoV #2: Mia

Format: Comic panels

Meanwhile, Mia is a rather annoying Type A. She's running for class president and is so obsessed with it that she basically loses both her friends and her boyfriend. Ruby is mentioned a few times in her section and she's clearly exasperated by her. During the talent show, Mia hears the start of the poem and flees. The girls later get into a fight in the school halls and both their parents are called. So far we've seen Mia with her dad and Ruby with her mom. Instead of detention, the girls have to work together volunteering with their favorite English teacher who works with younger kids after school. They both love it and find a way past their differences with Mia getting Ruby's help in what you think is her campaign speech but actually ends up being her explaining why her competitor will be the better president. She makes up with both her friends and her boyfriend. 

TWIST: Near the end when Mia texts Ruby and asks if she wants to watch Phineas and Ferb and Ruby says yes, they emerge from two rooms...right beside each other. Ruby and Mia are SISTERS. Definitely a good one in the twist department. I didn't see it coming at all. 

PoV #1: Sarah

Format: Illustrated prose

This one works a little differently. Not only is it split by character, but the stories do not run on the same timeline. Sarah is a character we've seen many times. She's BFFs with Emmie and Brianna. Her other best friend (Best Boy Friend) is her neighbor Leo, who goes to a private school. The big issue is will Sarah ask her crush Ben to the dance? In Sarah's section, she DOES ask Ben. He says yes, but practically ghosts her after. Not the behavior of someone who wants to go to a dance. Leo is upset about this so he kind of abandons her, too. Ben ends up saying he's sick and bowing out of the dance, so Leo offers to take his place. While at the dance, Sarah overhears two boys talking and learns that Ben never wanted to go with her. She just caught him by surprise and he didn't want to hurt her feelings because they're both friends with Leo. Afterward, Leo ends up confessing that the reason he abandoned her for a bit is because when she told him she asked Ben to the dance, Leo realized he liked Sarah. She's freaked out and avoids him for a while, but then they finally talk. 

PoV #2: Leo

Format: Comic panels

In Leo's story, Sarah does NOT ask Ben to the dance. Leo is dealing with convincing his two dads to let him switch from private school to Sarah's school. His parents want him to do better and focus more, which is why they tried the private school. Leo is deliberately avoiding making friends there just to try to prove how much he hates it. When Sarah reveals her crush on Ben and her failure to ask him, Leo offers to go with her. Leo doesn't like being around both of his friends at the same time. Sarah is goofy around Ben and tries too hard, so Leo starts hanging out with Ben at his house. All Ben wants to do is play video games while Leo is more the athletic type, so he's always bored. So in this version of the story, Leo is at Ben's and Ben goes on about how weird Sarah is. Leo lets it slip that she's weird because she likes Ben and Ben is unreasonably pissed. He does end up at the dance and this time Sarah overhears him talking about how he'll hide from her if she still has a crush on him. Knowing Leo told, Sarah is rightfully furious. Leo realizes Ben is a shitty friend. In this version, Leo also comes out as having a crush on Sarah and again, she can't take it. 

So now we're at the final shared chapter, which is the same ending for both versions of the story. Leo is finally happier at his private school because he's made friends and he decides to stay there. Sarah is over Ben, because he's an asshole in both versions, though way moreso in the Leo's PoV version. They agree to start over and concentrate on being friends. Joe appears a little bit in this one, as he does have a crush on Sarah, which was discussed in Tyler's book. 

TWIST: There is none. After one as good as Ruby's, I don't mind not getting one. I wasn't a fan of the format this time. These books are more realistically-written so having two different versions of the same story and you don't know which actually happened is annoying. I liked Sarah better in the other books and I'm disappointed that this was her plotline. 

So that's that! The timeline of this series really is all over the place. Emmie and Izzy come first. Ruby's runs around the same time as both of those, I think. It ends shortly after the talent show. Tyler's is after that and then Sarah's. Sarah's is set in May, which puts it right before Jaime's, which is at the end of the school year. Then Brianna's covers that entire time period. 

Character-wise, I actually really love Ruby. I think she might be my favorite. She seemed the most loveable character. I liked Sarah before her own book. I still like her, but definitely not as much. Emmie I liked more in her own book than in Tyler's, but overall, I like her a lot. 

I'm not sure who I'd like to see get a book next. I'd love to see more of Leah. Nikki Lourde actually interests me, even though she doesn't have the best rep. She's Anthony's ex and the girl who got him to stop spitting. The one with the purple hair. We've not seen anything with her friend group, so she could use some depth. Joe could definitely use a book. It'll be interesting to see who's next!