It me.

What I like about Shannon Hale's narrative is that we get to see her awareness of young Shannon's social mistakes, and see how young Shannon didn't even realize what she was blundering into. That... that hit home. That was me as a kid. Looking back, I cringe at some of the interactions I had, and I wonder if Hale did too, digging some of this up and writing about it. The effect is perfect. Even Jenny, bully though she was, was never stripped of her human-ness in Hale's memoir.

LeUyen's art is also a treat: bold lines, bright color, and tiny nuance of expression brought all of the characters' interior selves out and set it before the reader's eyes, exactly where it needed to be in this kind of story. I found myself going back over panels just to look at the art again.