This was a great middle grade graphic novel about Verity Nelson who is student body president, debate club whiz and first chair orchestra so she is should be good at everything right and she is except Math. Verity is failing math and if she doesn’t get her grade up she is going to be forced to resign as student body president so she hides what she is doing and just keeps adding more to her plate without delegating it since she is afraid that it will prove she doesn’t deserve her position and her VP who is her friend Bree will take it from her. When she makes a mistake transposing numbers while ordering shirts for a school trip fundraiser that was part of her campaign promise she resigns but that mistake helps her tutor figure out that she has dyscalculia which makes her mix up her numbers and now with the diagnosis she can pass math. This was a really great fast read and I really enjoyed the message of you don’t have to perfect at everything and that it's ok to ask for help and the illustrations were very good as well.

Thanks to Harper Alley and Netgalley for the complimentary copy of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a fun graphic novel that will be a great read for kids. The story was so fun and engaging.

We all want to hide our imperfections behind the facade of our roaring milestones but we don't know when the going gets tough, how to get going? Well, this book is answer to that and so much more. It's about hardwork (more like smart work), friendship, and reorienting yourself. It handles difficult topic in subtle, comical way. It keeps you hooked till you hit the last page and leaves you with an impressionable feeling of rupture. Must read for everyone.

"Very Bad at Math" is a middle grade graphic novel about Verity, nicknamed "Very," an eigth grader who is elected class president in a landslide for the third time in a row. Very is great at most of her schoolwork, politics, sports, and pretty much everything, but this year she's failing math. Something just isn't clicking. Very needs to bring up her grade or she will have to stop being class president. When she is assigned an extra math class with only one other student, she doesn't want to let anyone know about her failure. The illustrations are fun and bright and the author handles the difficult subjects well. A mostly realistic story about friendship, middle school, learning differences, this is a must-buy for all middle grade graphic novel collections.

Verity is good at everything. She excels in all her classes. She has been class president every year she has been in middle school. She is super popular, and everyone loves when she knows who they are. She wants to be in politics when she grows up.


And then, she finds she is failing math. She is sent to take tutoring classes, and tries to hide that from everyone, because she can’t stand the fact that she could be failing at anything.


I thought I wasn’t going to like this. I thought that reading a story about a girl who was all that was going to be boring, but she was actually just charismatic, not mean, although she sometimes was thoughtless, not realizing that something she thought was funny, wasn’t.


This is a great book for those out there that have math anxiety, or something even more befuddling. Every step in this story things are explained, and we get a good look at how not learning math can mess you up. And having Dyscalculia, which is like dyslexia for numbers, can make it so you can never get the problems right.


Highly recommended. This was never preachy. And the funny bits were funny. And the bullying was quite understandable and dealt with.


Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review. This book is coming out the 22nth of January 2025.