Be Prepared

Well written story about the perils of summer camp and friendship for an upper elementary/ middle school audience. Liked the inner look at Russian Orthodoxy and how true to the time the characters were - like the social hierarchy of owning American Girl dolls! I was a kid who dreamed of the summer camps I read about/saw on TV but never got to go, so would have loved this book as a young kid.

A cute story about how summer camp kind of sucks, which jibes with my experiences. I'm unimpressed by the artwork; the limited color palette was a weird choice.

Irrelevant side note: given this is autobiographical, the idea of a military-themed summer camp for children of Russian descent in the US is unsettling and good fodder for a conspiracy story about long-term infiltration.

3,5 stars

This was such a great story. I relate to the main character there are few things more miserable than being alone in a crowd.

3.75 stars Super cute art style

Semi-autobiographical, very well done.

I LOVE summer camp and summer camp stories, even stories about a girl who does NOT like summer camp. Which, to be fair, Vera's summer camp sounds pretty brutal. I love the honesty in this memoir(ish) graphic novel–in another book we'd see Vera learning a lesson and befriending the girl who liked her art, but Vera never quite gave up on wanting acceptance from the older, popular girls, and there's something to that. This is funny and cringey and intensely relatable.

Also the art is SO good and expressive, I loved it. And I died at the knockoff American Girl doll named “Complicity”.

Naturally I'm going to say it's a good readalike for Raina Telgemeier fans. It's also a great match for the raw ambiguity of Shannon Hale's graphic memoir Real Friends.

Well, this was pretty good, I liked it a lot.

As someone who had both awful and amazing summer camp experiences, I could very much relate to Vera - her excitement, her disappointment, her eventual resetting of expectations. Love the art style!

I've loved Vera Brosgol's word since Leave Me Alone. This is a memoir/graphic novel of four weeks she spent at camp. It is, by turns, hilarious and heartbreakingly realistic. LOVED IT!