A coming-of-age tale with a spooky twist! Maggie McKay hardly knows what to do with herself. After an idyllic childhood of homeschooling with her mother and rough-housing with her older brothers, it’s time for Maggie to face the outside world, all on her own. But that means facing high school first. And it also means solving the mystery of the melancholy ghost who has silently followed Maggie throughout her entire life. Maybe it even means making a new friend—one who isn’t one of her brothers. Funny, surprising, and tender, Friends with Boys is a pitch perfect YA graphic novel full of spooky supernatural fun.
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About the Author
FAITH ERIN HICKS is a writer and artist in Halifax, Canada. Her first two graphic novels, Zombies Calling and The War at Ellsmere, were published by SLG Publishing. Most recently, she illustrated First Second’s Brain Camp. Hicks has three brothers and was homeschooled until high school. She has never seen a ghost.
A Q&A WITH FRIENDS WITH BOYS AUTHOR FAITH ERIN HICKS
How much of Friends With Boys is inspired by your life?
I used my own life as a starting point for Friends With Boys. I have three brothers (although I am the oldest, not the youngest) and I was homeschooled until high school. However, I have never seen a ghost. I put a lot of the emotional chaos I felt going into high school for the first time into Friends With Boys. The main character's first day at school freak-out is very similar to what happened to me on my first day. I remember running away from the school and going to my local library and hiding there until my parents came to get me. It's funny, now that I think about it, being so scared of my peers. Everyone's scared in high school, and everyone thinks they're the only one.
You grew up without a TV. Was that weird for you?
It was pretty weird. I don't think it's such a big deal now, because now there is the internet, but when I was a kid, the internet was just text on a black screen and TV was the great cultural touchstone. Not having a TV meant no watching GI JOE or Transformers (I did manage to sneak in some My Little Pony, but the episodes I saw were few and far between), so I didn't have that immediate connection to kids my age. It's hard to play GI JOE or My Little Pony when you're not aware of the plotlines. I think TV is a pretty amazing storytelling medium, so I'm not anti-TV by any stretch of the imagination, but I have a huge cultural gap in my knowledge. I don't look back on childhood shows like Transformers and feel nostalgic towards them; I watch them as an adult and they look terribly animated and written and they aren't fun. The original My Little Pony, however, remains awesome.
Who are your favourite creators and how do they influence your work?
On this side of the globe, I really enjoy the work of Jeff Smith (Bone), Raina Telgemeier (Smile), Mike Mignola/John Arcudi/Guy Davis (BPRD), and Nate Powell (Swallow Me Whole). Elsewhere, I love the work of Naoki Urasawa (Pluto), Hiromu Arakawa (Fullmetal Alchemist) and Claire Wendling.
It seems a disproportionally large number of cartoonist come from Canada. Is there something in the water up there?
Yes. At birth, all Canadian children are brought before the great Wheel of Canadian Destiny, to spin for our future. There are various specific Canadian careers on the Wheel of Destiny, such as cartoonist, comedian, animator, hockey player, hockey fan and Saturday Night Live producer. I don't actually remember this happening (I was a baby, after all), but I assume my Wheel of Canadian Destiny spin landed me on Cartoonist, and here I am. I'm pretty sure the Wheel of Canadian Destiny only has about six or seven options on it, which is why 1/6th of the country is cartoonists. A huge amount, for sure.
Why did you start drawing comics?
I started making comics because it seemed like fun creative outlet, and putting them online was easy. I'd always been very attracted to the medium (I grew up reading Asterix and Tintin, like all good Canadian children), but there weren't many comics that I had access to that seemed to be made with me in mind. So I started making my own comics, the comics I wanted to read, even though I was absolutely terrible at them! I didn't even know how to draw when I first started making comics. And now here I am 12 years and 1800 comic pages later, making my living as a cartoonist ... it is something of a surprise.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By Yumi
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
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I'm torn. I fell in love with Maggie and her brothers. I would have loved friends like Lucy and Alistair in high school. But once I was finished with this graphic novel, my mind was blank. The story felt incomplete. I have too many questions. How did the haunting fit into her life? Why her? And what about the others who could see her but weren't haunted by her? Was it resolved at the end or did she just learn to accept it? Maggie questions her mother's sudden disappearance but the boys and the father just seem to accept it. Considering the father is a cop, it seems odd.
If I ignore these nagging questions, it's a great vignette of Maggie's life starting at a public high school after being homeschooled for the first part of her life. The artwork is great and I loved the detail on every page. I just wish there was more to it. I don't expect all questions to be answered in a story (they rarely are in real life, especially in high school) but I felt that these were neglected gaps in the story rather than questions that are left up to the reader to answer.
If I ignore these nagging questions, it's a great vignette of Maggie's life starting at a public high school after being homeschooled for the first part of her life. The artwork is great and I loved the detail on every page. I just wish there was more to it. I don't expect all questions to be answered in a story (they rarely are in real life, especially in high school) but I felt that these were neglected gaps in the story rather than questions that are left up to the reader to answer.
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
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When I read the book's inside flap--a story about a homeschooled girl, Maggie McKay, going to public high school for the first time, and as if that wasn't bad enough, she's also (literally) haunted--I was completely intrigued and prepared myself to fall in love. Unfortunately, it didn't happen that way.
The artwork reminded me of a classic comic style, but updated and with manga/anime influences, and the black/white/greyscale rendering actually contributed to some of the story's bleaker themes. Each of the characters were drawn with great expression of emotion and the wise arrangement of the panels made them easy to follow, plus it was well-written and well-edited.
But as much as I wanted to love this graphic novel, at times I found the main story muddied--it came across as a disjointed telling of too many stories in too short a space--and resulted in some of the themes/characters not being too deeply explored.
Basically, Maggie's was a coming of age story which explored themes like adjusting to new situations, socializing, and self-acceptance. On top of that, she had to deal with a number of inner demons--mainly surrounding the estrangement of her mother--which shadowed her literal haunting. However, the literal haunting seemed more like a contrivance to facilitate the story's climax than an integral part of the story.
Even with that quibble, I did find the book entertaining. Maggie's story was engrossing and, as a character, she was skillfully crafted. It's unfortunate that I can't say the same of all the remaining characters (at least, not consistently), many of which lacked dimension--again, probably stemming from the trying-to-cram-too-much-in problem I mentioned earlier.... Read more ›
The artwork reminded me of a classic comic style, but updated and with manga/anime influences, and the black/white/greyscale rendering actually contributed to some of the story's bleaker themes. Each of the characters were drawn with great expression of emotion and the wise arrangement of the panels made them easy to follow, plus it was well-written and well-edited.
But as much as I wanted to love this graphic novel, at times I found the main story muddied--it came across as a disjointed telling of too many stories in too short a space--and resulted in some of the themes/characters not being too deeply explored.
Basically, Maggie's was a coming of age story which explored themes like adjusting to new situations, socializing, and self-acceptance. On top of that, she had to deal with a number of inner demons--mainly surrounding the estrangement of her mother--which shadowed her literal haunting. However, the literal haunting seemed more like a contrivance to facilitate the story's climax than an integral part of the story.
Even with that quibble, I did find the book entertaining. Maggie's story was engrossing and, as a character, she was skillfully crafted. It's unfortunate that I can't say the same of all the remaining characters (at least, not consistently), many of which lacked dimension--again, probably stemming from the trying-to-cram-too-much-in problem I mentioned earlier.... Read more ›
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Reason for Reading: I enjoy the author/artist and was intrigued that the book was about homeschooled teens.
The author is obviously writing from her own life seeing as she was homeschooled until high school and has three brothers. This is the background of the main character in the book, added to Maggie's life is that her mom has just skipped out on them without her really knowing why and Maggie has been haunted by a 17th century ghost since she was about six. I really enjoyed this book. I think it gave a fairly accurate portrayal of homeschool life though Hicks did treat it like it was the 1990's, not now when it has become pretty much mainstream. (I was homeschooled for high school in the '80s and have been homeschooling my children in one way or another for the last 19 years.)
The title is a little deceptive as I thought we might get into dating and stuff, but it refers to sisters being friends with their brothers and I really appreciated this theme. I don't have any brothers but I really envied the close relationship Maggie had with hers and how the relationship between Lucy and Alistair developed also. The book deals with other typical teen subjects such as being new to a school, dealing with bullies, how to make friends and what it's like when your brother is popular but you are not. Hicks artwork is as expected and truly measures up to her other work making it a delight to look at. The only problem with this could be that she draws her characters very similar and the main two females in this book are almost identical to the two females in "The War at Ellesmere" with different hairdos.
I loved the characters, the story about the teens at school, the family dynamics, etc. but the bit about the ghost haunting was an oddity.... Read more ›
The author is obviously writing from her own life seeing as she was homeschooled until high school and has three brothers. This is the background of the main character in the book, added to Maggie's life is that her mom has just skipped out on them without her really knowing why and Maggie has been haunted by a 17th century ghost since she was about six. I really enjoyed this book. I think it gave a fairly accurate portrayal of homeschool life though Hicks did treat it like it was the 1990's, not now when it has become pretty much mainstream. (I was homeschooled for high school in the '80s and have been homeschooling my children in one way or another for the last 19 years.)
The title is a little deceptive as I thought we might get into dating and stuff, but it refers to sisters being friends with their brothers and I really appreciated this theme. I don't have any brothers but I really envied the close relationship Maggie had with hers and how the relationship between Lucy and Alistair developed also. The book deals with other typical teen subjects such as being new to a school, dealing with bullies, how to make friends and what it's like when your brother is popular but you are not. Hicks artwork is as expected and truly measures up to her other work making it a delight to look at. The only problem with this could be that she draws her characters very similar and the main two females in this book are almost identical to the two females in "The War at Ellesmere" with different hairdos.
I loved the characters, the story about the teens at school, the family dynamics, etc. but the bit about the ghost haunting was an oddity.... Read more ›
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
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I really enjoyed the start of this graphic novel. The art style was fun (reminded me of Scott O'Malley's Scott Pilgrims Precious Little Boxset series) Maggie is an interesting character - the youngest child of four, the only girl in the family, homeschooled and about to enter public high school. Her mother is not around having abandoned the family for some unexplained reason, but her father is a strong figure in her life and she is a confident young woman. I was ready to follow her on her new adventure in 9th grade.
So why is there a random ghost in this story? The "paranormal twist" felt very tacked on. It actually detracted for a very strong coming-of-age story. Maggie was refreshingly down to earth and funny. I see what the author wanted to do with the ghost, but the idea was poorly executed. I hope to see more from this writer/artist.
'Friends with Boys' is a good read but it has some flaws that keep it from being great. (If you want to read a coming-of-age story with a well-done paranormal twist, check out Anya's Ghost).
So why is there a random ghost in this story? The "paranormal twist" felt very tacked on. It actually detracted for a very strong coming-of-age story. Maggie was refreshingly down to earth and funny. I see what the author wanted to do with the ghost, but the idea was poorly executed. I hope to see more from this writer/artist.
'Friends with Boys' is a good read but it has some flaws that keep it from being great. (If you want to read a coming-of-age story with a well-done paranormal twist, check out Anya's Ghost).
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Friends with Boys
This graphic novel was wonderful! I just wish it was longer as the end felt rushed and didn't satisfy me.
Published 3 months ago by Becca
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pretty good!
The art was gorgeous, and reminded me of Scott Pilgrim. The story didn't flow perfectly, but I enjoyed it and felt that the art more than made up for it.
Published 5 months ago by Naila Sweney
5.0 out of 5 stars
clean, expressive art and a compelling story
I read this when it was posted online for free, and I liked it so much I bought a copy. That's probably all you need to hear. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Adam We
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fun story, NEED MOAR
I dig a lot of Faith Erin Hicks work, but this book is a beautifully illustrated black and white coming of age story about a girl going to her first year of public school after... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Fwacata
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent graphic novel with just a touch of paranormal
Maggie McKay was homeschooled her entire life, but now it's her first day of high school. Her dad's just become the police chief, her mother has run off, and her three older... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Liviania
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pleasantly Surprised!
I read a lot of graphic novels made for adults, like Watchmen, any Marjane Satrapi book, Fun House, and so on, so I didn't really expect this book to be that good because of the... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Ethan Dennis
4.0 out of 5 stars
Title doesn't quite fit this interesting graphic novel
FRIENDS WITH BOYS has an oddly ill-fitting title; it's the story of a teenager, Maggie, who is starting in a public highschool after her mother (who home-schooled her and her three... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Andrew C Wheeler
5.0 out of 5 stars
You'll make friends with this book.
Being homeschooled and raised with three older brothers has its ups and downs, but Maggie's life gets a lot more complicated when she begins her first year of high school. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Bookmark
3.0 out of 5 stars
quick, fun graphic novel
This was my first graphic novel that i've ever read, and to be honest I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I had a physical copy opposed to reading an ARC galley on my... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Laura (The Reading Nook
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful, poetic, funny
Such a good comic about family, school and mysteries, we are immediately friends with Faith Erin Hicks' characters. The art is wonderfully expressive.
Published 14 months ago by Algesiras
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