I wanted to enjoy this book as I think the concept fills a need. It would be age appropriate for middle school students. However the pages are too busy, the text too small and the format hard to follow. As a graphic novel it needs a little work. The content is relatable for this age group, I just wish it had a bit more in the way of solutions.

The publisher made a copy of this book available via Netgalley. This is my honest review.

I like the idea of the book as well as graphic execution. The situations shown in the book are very common and well familiar to children. However, I have expected some “graceful way out of them” for children to learn. Because it is very funny to read, but let’s linger some feeling of helplessness afterwards of still not knowing how to act in these embarrassing situations.
All in all, children find the book really funny.
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the provided advanced copy! All opinions are mine.

So Embarrassing provides lessons in social situations through a graphic novel. The book includes tips, true facts, and stories with talking dogs and other animals. The pages can appear overwhelming with lots of graphics and text along the edges. This may be challenging for students to focus on the text. However, this may be a good book to help students understand various social situations and appropriate responses. This is recommended as an additional purchase where books on social situations are needed.

My son found this helpful and now I am looking to get a copy for his friend. I think it's a must read for middle school kids, for sure.

Intended to normalize embarrassment, this book uses comic strips and silly jokes interspersed throughout (often in the margins) to get the message across that everyone has been embarrassed at one time or another. While I appreciate the intention behind this book, the pages are altogether too busy in my opinion and something that could have been put together rather like a collection of newspaper comic strips feels way too drawn out. (no pun intended) The message therefore gets overplayed and the reader finds themselves either rushing to the ending or in my case abandoning the effort after the first 1/4 of the book.

I received an electronic ARC from Workman Publishing Group through NetGalley.
Harper takes readers through a variety of embarrassing situations by having her characters experience them and talk about them together. Helpful hints and bad advice are ashred. Readers need to think for themselves and see what works for them. The main character and their dog introduce the topics and offer commentary throughout. A badge appears and passes out badges for making it through situations. Scientific information is slipped in so readers will understand what is happening in their bodies. It's only at the end that a hippo appears to share important information with characters and readers.
Interesting concept and middle grade readers will appreciate the humor and affirmation that situations like these happen to everyone. Transitions are a bit abrupt but the book works.

This book has a good title and premise, but a disappointing execution. It is full of awkward moments, but nothing of the "how to get through them" parts, or at least nothing actually useful or at least funny. It just didn't meet my expectation. I also wished the texts in the speech bubbles are larger for ease in reading. The colors in this book are very vibrant and most of the time, also hurt my eyes. There's just a lot of minus points throughout my reading experience of this book.

Humorous comic-style nonfiction explaining different embarrassing situations that kids might encounter in their daily lives. Overall, the print is small and hard to read and sometimes when it is meant to be funny, it falls a little flat. Not sure that this will appeal to my students.

I will be honest and say that I was not able to get through this entire book. First, the copy I downloaded was extremely blurry, and it gave me a headache to read. I tried adjusting the size of it thinking that would help, but it didn't. Then I saw other reviewers say they had the same problem. So I gave up about half way through.

I do like the idea of this book. I mean, what kids can't relate to embarassing situations, like falling out of their chair, waving to the wrong person, having food stuck in their teeth, or spilling on your pants so it looks like you peed your pants? This book shows different ways you can handle a given situation, in graphic novel form. There are little related "True Facts" thrown in randomly, which are fun to read.

Charise Mericle Harper is pretty popular in my library, so when I saw she had a nonfiction graphic novel releasing soon, I knew I needed it! I love the diverse topics that nonfiction comics are covering now and I'm very glad to see embarrassment added to that list. The topic was handled very well, with the inclusion of a licensed health counselor's input (though she was stylized as a hippo, which was a bit odd). The art is not spectacular, but does the job perfectly fine.

I loved this book! The graphic novel format is perfect. The anecdotes are spot on with embarrassing moments kids experience. The tips for getting through a moment are realistic and doable. The author includes the science behind blushing and with the help of experts offers suggestions for surviving embarrassing moments.

I received an advance reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley.

Social emotional learning can be a tough sell to tweens, but So Embarrassing will suck them right in with cartoons, oh-so-relatable moments, and humor. From poop-on-the-shoe to parents-in-public, this book is on target with concerns for young people. In places I had a hard time following the story, but that may be because I was reading a PDF file. I appreciated the scientific explanations behind blushing, the examples of poor coping mechanism, and the trustworthy tips for preparing for future embarrassing moments, all presented in a kid-friendly manner.

Love Charise Merical Harper and kids will really identify with the topics covered here in this engaging, comic styly format.

Review to come October 25th on blog/ Goodreads.

received this book from Netgalley/publisher in exchange of an honest review!

So it's been a while, but when I got this book in April... the quality just sucked. Really, it was blurry, the text was just barely there. I mailed NG and they said they would check it out. I haven't heard back on my query from Netgalley but in July I decided to just redownload it and see if maybe the quality was better now. It was, at least at points, I still cannot read everything, but at least now I could finally read this book on how to get through awkward situations (which I at times seem to find myself). I am adding this part as it did impact my experience/feelings for the book. I just don't think it is cool to upload a crappy quality book and then never let me know it is fixed (for most) when I ask NG about it. I am definitely not into the book as much as I was when I requested it in April.

This was quite an interesting read, about feelings, about awkward situations, and it is all done with big dash of humour. I definitely enjoyed reading it, though I also thought it was a bit chaotic. It seemed to jump around a bit and at times we got back to a topic when I thought it was already over.

I did like that everything was done comic style, and I liked reading the comics and all the awkwardness that happened there. I have definitely been on the end of both someone forgetting my name, I forgetting theirs, and oh yes, them mishearing my name. Oops! Also the food part, OMG, I have had friends with braces and how do you tell them subtly that they have something stuck? Also how do you get white bread stuck between your teeth? What kind of bread are these guys eating? Haha, I definitely had the I didn't pee thing happen. Juice, or water, argh. At times I just draped my jacket over my waist and covered it that way. But the solutions presented in the comic are even more fun (though I wouldn't recommend making your complete pants wet). And so there are many more situations which had me nodding along, laughing, giggling. I definitely loved how the book brought these situations, threw in humour, and then also presented us with some creative/interesting/maybe not always helpful though solutions.

But we also learn how your body works in these situations. Like blushing, or the flight/fight instinct. I definitely liked that those were added.

And there is plenty more embarrassing things and how to combat them, or at least see that it may not always be so bad as you think it is.

I really liked Gary, though I did feel sorry for the little guy. I also liked the fourth wall breaking, that had me laughing and is a big plus in my eyes.

I did like the art in this book. It was a fun kind of style and I think it fitted well with this book.

But yeah, some stuff was still unreadable, I would have liked to see it a bit more organised and less chaotic. I hope that for the finished product they will have at least fixed the blurry/unreadable text stuff.

A hilarious and much needed resource for all kids! Told in comic format, readers will see why their body and mind react to normally embarrassing situations. The playful nature of this book is perfect to engage readers (even older ones) in some important truths about growing up. I wish I had this book to help me navigate these awkward moments as a kid. The realism is really refreshing!

This book is funny, informative, and so relatable. The discussion of emotional regulation is easy for kids to understand with clear action steps. I look forward to the final version to check out the back matter before adding it to my library's collection.

I received an advance reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

This book is a children's book but even I as an adult found some of it very relatable and it gave me a good giggle.
I had to zoom in quite far to read a lot of the text as it is comic book style and I'm not sure if it was because it was a pdf file but I struggled to read some of it which is why I have dropped my rating to a 3 star as if the book is printed as the file is it would be very hard to read.

This is a non-fiction graphic novel about various embarrassing moments Such as tripping, having food in your teeth, blushing, waving to someone that doesn’t weight back, etc. It is funny and easy to read. It also has some great facts about embarrassing moments in history.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
This book had potential but it didn't really meet my expectations. It was pretty good although the book was a bit blurry, making it difficult to read. Hopefully the formatting can be corrected before the book is published.

*thank you Netgally and the author for the gifted copy, all thoughts are completely my own*

I thought (as an adult) most of this was pretty funny. It was difficult to read, I don't know if that's just because of the file or what.

The dog was great, very honest. Lol. Poor Gary... haha