by Stephen Edmond
ages: 14+
First sentence: “Write what you see and draw what you feel.”
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Meet Happyface. He’s attempting to reinvent himself in the wake of some pretty traumatic events. His family used to be “typical”: mom, dad, two sons, but events, and bad choices caused that to fall apart. Will that stop Happyface? No! Formerly a shy, artistic, computer-game and comic geek, he’s using the move to a new town (into an apartment with his mother) as a chance to start over.

First off: get new friends.

Happyface is the nickname that the object of his idolization, Gretchen, gave him. He’s trying so hard to be happy, to be friendly, to be likable, that she dubs him “happyface”, and it sticks. In fact, as the book unfolds, we learn a lot about Gretchen, her friends Karma and Misty Moon, her ex-boyfriend Trevor, and even about Happyface’s ex-BFF, Chloe, but not much about Happyface himself (including his name). He’s a mystery, keeping everything close to his chest and away from both the other characters as well as the reader. The conflict comes from this reluctance to reveal anything: because he’s not willing to talk about what happened in his family or his past, it ends up sabotaging his friendships. Captivating in its style — journal entries that include both prose and art — your heart aches for this boy, muddling through trying to make it all work, even as you can see it falling apart around him.

(Is it wrong that I just wanted to send them all to therapy?)