Shannon Hale's REAL FRIENDS

Real Friends is a recently-released graphic novel written by Shannon Hale. I typically enjoy Hale's writing, so I picked it up.

I was a bit surprised to find an autobiographical story that was at times quite hard to read.

Young Shannon becomes attached to one best friend and develops problems when that friend joins a popular group. Shannon's forced to compete for her attention, which is also confusing for her when she befriends the leader of the group and then is constantly under attack from the leader's best friend, who's jealous of anyone she feels is a threat.

Shannon struggles with her relationship with her best friend, who honestly has become kind of an asshole. When she finally moves away, there's never any real resolution of her actions, no apology for being a jerkass.

Shannon also struggles with a very abusive older sister and a mother who is a completely useless bitch in this situation. How you let your older kid beat up one of the younger ones as well as verbally abuse her, I'll never know. I hope the mother has since apologized to Shannon, because that was the hardest part for me. The mother tells Shannon that when Shannon tells her what's going on with Wendy (the sister), Wendy just gets angrier. She tells Shannon to work it out for herself, because she'll have nothing more to do with it. Then the stupid ass parents let abusive Wendy BABYSIT and Shannon spends countless hours hiding in the bushes outside.

Hiding from her older sister. For hours. Outside in the bushes. Because their mother will not lift a fucking finger.

It comes out later in the story that Wendy's had a pretty depressing childhood with no friends and her own bullies, but that does not for one second condone her abuse towards her younger sister, nor is it a reason to let her abuse your damn kid!

Really seriously epically bad parenting.

Shannon eventually ends up in a different class from the popular group and makes new friends, who show her that popularity can come from a good place. These older girls are actually nice to everyone. Shannon learns a lot from them and suddenly, the popular leader of her old group wants to be part of her new one. Shannon accepts her and the other members of the group, but when the girl who's bullied her for years asks to join, Shannon refuses. One of the smartest things she's ever done. It's perfectly okay to distance yourself from your abusers.

So yeah, this is not a feel good story. It's very heavy. Shannon exhibits symptoms of anxiety and OCD, but those aren't treated. She's a few years older than me and those things weren't really treated back then. She experiences abuse after abuse. It's got a nice ending and she becomes a stronger person and even reconciles with the abusive sister, but this is not a happy book that you want to read to younger kids. I think books like these are important for children, so they recognize abuse, but they need to be shared with teaching moments to make up for the things the story is lacking.

It's a good book, but yeah, not a feel good story at all. Consider yourselves warned.