4.5/ 5 stars for this great middle grade graphic novel about friendship, grief, and growing up.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Children's Books for the egalley of Dear Rosie.

Dear Rosie shows us the aftermath and healing process of four young teen girls who have lost their friend in a car accident. Through emotive, colorful artwork and the conversations the girls have together and with the adults in their lives, we can see the different ways in which the healing process operates in different people. Some act out, some get angry, some search for belonging, and some feel the need to find answers, and none of these ways of coping are demonized through the story. The conflicts the girls face throughout their 7th grade year feel emotionally true and young readers who are grieving loss, and those who are trying to deal with changes in their lives, will likely find this story and its characters relatable.

My minor complaint that keeps this from being a 5/5 star book is that the pacing feels a bit fast in a way that doesn't really work with the timeline of the story. The story spans the girls 7th grade year from the first day of school, to the first day of summer break, and while there are some slight changes in season, it feels like the story occurs in the span of a month rather than in the span of nearly a year. It's nit-picky, but I was surprised and confused when I realized at the end of the book that we'd been seeing snippets of a whole year, not just a month or two. I don't think that this is a major detriment to the story, but it was enough to give me a little bit of whiplash.

This reads a lot like The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci, and it made me a bit nostalgic for the time in which I first read that book, which I think means this book is perfect for the middle schooler of today as The Plain Janes was for me at the same age.

I would highly recommend this to readers who enjoy realistic fiction comics like Raina Telgemeier's books as well as to any young teen who is dealing with loss and major changes in their life. This story is a comfort and it shows that pain is something we all feel and learn to navigate with the help of the people we love and care for.