Rating: 4 Stars Themes: Graphic Novel Thoughts: This is quite the thought provoking graphic novel. Will decides he needs to follow the rules of the streets and hops in the elevator from his home and takes a much longer ride to the lobby than he expected. It’s an interesting approach to the cycle of violence that occurs in street/gang life with the eye for an eye mentality and with each new person on each floor we get another insight into that kind of life. There are moments when the illustrations almost turn violent themselves with harsh red painted text and others are sweet with the haze of nostalgia present. The ending is quite interesting and it definitely leaves a lot to the imagination, almost as if Reynolds is testing what the audience has learnt. Favourite Quote: "The Rules weren’t meant to be broken. They were meant for the broken to follow."
Rating: 3 Stars Themes: Non-Fiction, Teen, Mental Health Thoughts: This is written in a great format for teens as often they use the term just stuff instead of talking about their feelings so contextualising it as stuff that sucks and stuff that helps is a good way to get through to them. The book covers a lot of different things that go into wellbeing in a short concise way so as to avoid overloading young brains but still manages to get across the important parts. Favourite Quote: "We live in a world that tells us to be an individual and to be independent, yet that doesn't always feel safe."