This graphic novel had some great music quotes and groups sited. This story was showed how kids can be raised in many different ways and how it affects their mental health. This book would be great for question answering and asking. I think this novel would be great in a series. What happens next with the dancer, that is in a group home, the intelligent boy, and the ghost girl. How are their grandparents doing in life? Also…….does anyone ever find their hidden box?

What an amazing graphic novel. It is entertaining, captivates you from the beginning and keeps your interest. It is great for anyone who enjoys graphic novels. I truly enjoyed it!

A sweet coming-of-age graphic novel, RHIANNON follows the titular 12 year old character over the course of summer in 1989. Having never known her father and losing her mother when she was three, Rhiannon has spent her life living with her aunt, who lives in a retirement trailer park in California. She's a bookworm and a writer, and she cares for the people and world around her. The summer this story captures follows Rhiannon as her childhood best friend, Kit, comes to visit his grandmother for the season as well as a newcomer: Elizabeth, the ballerina-turned-punk granddaughter of another resident in the trailer park. It is rife with teenage angst, finding oneself, and learning to live with hurt.

Truthfully, I initially was only interested in this because it's not often I see my name used in fiction (and I do wonder if that's why they accepted my request for an ARC lol). However, when I read the synopsis and looked closer at the cover, I became a lot more intrigued. I think the art was really well done in this and I loved the themes presented and how they were handled. Honestly, I almost cried over some of the scenes between Rhia and Aunt Gran because I don't think it's often I see elderly queer people represented and that storyline was just heartrending.

I do think the story in general was a bit sparse and some of the conflict a little juvenile, but it is YA and I remember being that kind of melodramatic (I still am sometimes). Overall, I really liked the characters, especially Elizabeth with her arc through the story and the way her relationship with Rhia evolves over the course of it. I think this is something that the target audience will really enjoy.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

Rhiannon lives with her aunt in a retirement village in the middle of nowhere. She doesn't have any children she is friends with other than Kit, who visits every summer to see his grandmother.

Then, Elizabeth show up, and seems to draw Kit away from Rhiannon, and even shows her the old abandoned RV that they hang out in.

This could have been an amazing story, except for the fact that Rhiannon is so unrelatable.She is always whining on about fake ailments like a little old lady. She is jealous of Elizabeth, and doesn't want to talk to Kit or Elizabeth. And then she is friends with an older man, Hank, who one days just leaves, and she missing him.

It took me a long time to slog through this book. Having the character never doing anything, but complaining is hard.

One thing that is touched on, and never developed, is that her aunt had a female lover, back in the 1950s that was going to go marry a man, so they had a final trip together, and the girlfriend died. And that was all we got of that story.

I'm sure there are some teenagers that would relate to the main character, but I found her and the story a slog.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review. This book is coming out the27th of October 2025.

This was an okay book, not really my style but I still enjoyed reading it. Thank you for the opportunity.

Rhiannon, a teenage girl coping with trauma and loneliness, lives in a desert retirement community with her reclusive aunt. She befriends a coyote she names Loki, a kind older man named Hank, and a chaotic new friend named Elisabeth, whose presence shakes everything up! The graphic novel perfectly captures moody, aching teen sadness in ways that will take you RIGHT back to you own teenage years and wish you had this book to help you cope. Elisabeth’s boldness pushes Rhiannon to unravel hidden truths—about her aunt, Hank, and herself. A deeply emotional coming-of-age story with stunning character depth and atmosphere!

I officially think I was too old to truly enjoy this book. But, if I were still in high school, I absolutely could see myself enjoying this.

I have teen cousins, and I will definitely recommend this to them. I think that this graphic novel will be super relatable to the target audience. There’s a popular graphic novel called Smile, and I think that any fans of that graphic novel will love this one.

I feel like I don’t have much to say about this book because I can see it being beloved, but I was just too old for it. I don’t regret reading it or anything like that. In fact, I’m more sad than anything that I can’t really relate to it. I’m going neutral on my star rating because of this.

Thank you very much to Fierce Reads, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, and NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was reissued from a few years ago so I'm not sure if it was picked up by a more mainstream publisher or lost in the shuffle when it first came out but I adore this graphic novel about Rhiannon. A girl who lives with her aunt, old enough to be considered her grandmother in a retirement community area in the desert. And with a sad past like hers, Rhiannon's coping includes befriending a wild animal coyote she names Loki and a middle-aged guy named Hank in addition to chatting with her aunt's friends who help her out since the aunt hasn't left the community in a handful of years in addition to her insomnia that leads her to walk throughout the night and sit in an abandoned RV and her hypochondria; it all makes her this empathetic and endearing character. Plus the mood of the story has that overwhelming teen sadness feel that I love (think Thummler's Sheets too).

Kit comes for the summer to visit his relatives and he's got his own set of bullies like Rhiannon does on the daily. But there's something a little different this summer and it isn't just the arrival of a third teen, the wrecking ball of a girl, Elisabeth, who is a whiz with cars, has short purple hair, loves her music, and tells Kit and Rhiannon that she's a few months pregnant but no one can know while she's planning her "escape" that includes commandeering the busted RV.

Elisabeth busts other things wide open with her upfront style including Hank's past and even Rhiannon understanding her aunt's past (a queer relationship with a sad ending).

All told, this is an emotionally feeling graphic novel of the highest caliber just based on the mood alone, but with all of the other character development, setting, and conflict, it's simply five stars for me.

In this graphic novel we follow Rhiannon as she lives in a small trailer park with her 'Gran' Aunt. Her best friend Kit also lives in the park with his Grandma. Then a new girl named Elizabeth moves to the park. Kit and Rhiannon both think Elizabeth is the coolest person they've ever met, but Elizabeth is just trying to figure out her life too. Set in the late 90s, this graphic novel kept me interested throughout. That being said though, the ending was very abrupt and I wish it would've had more of wrapped up ending, but that's just a preference issue.


Thank you NetGalley and First Second for the ARC in return for an honest review.

I didn't really connect with this story at all. I'm not sure if it was that use of colour in certain places but not in others made it jarring, or if I just really didn't care about the storyline but this was a drag to get through.

Rhiannon is a young girl growing up under unconventional circumstances, in a trailer park retirement community raised by her elderly aunt. She finds community in that space, though, both in her family and others her age.

The book contains queer representation and racially diverse characters, as well as exploring other important topics.

Despite all the good about this book, my biggest complaint was that I found the main character to be unlikable. I liked the side characters far more than I liked Rhiannon, which is unfortunate.

Overall, I will probably add this book to the shelves in my library, but it wouldn’t be one of the first places that I turn to for recommendations because I feel that it falls flat in a few areas.

This was pretty good, but nothing about it wowed me. The art style was ok. The characters were fine, but I felt bad for how Kit was always treated so poorly. There were some heavy topics, but there really wasn't any form of pay off. This book literally just kind of....ends. It was almost as if Brinkman wasn't sure where the story needed to go, so she just suddenly ended it.

Rhiannon is a sublimely crafted slice-of-life that quietly grows as you read it. Its nuanced characters, evocative art, and bittersweet emotional honesty invites rereading, and reflection. The author weaves in difficult themes through the grounded lens of adolescence, allowing the story to explore weighty emotions without ever feeling overwhelming. It stays light in tone but still resonates deeply.

Straight away the narrative has a lot of potential with intriguing elements you'd think would pay off later on, but most of them don't. Rhiannon has an abundance of quirks with her own personhood as well as things like her relationship with the wolf that end up leading nowhere. The slice of life writing style is the best feature of the graphic novel. This world feels lived in and realistic. I do wish that character dynamics were more fleshed out. Rhiannon treats Kit terribly for so much of the story and it's unclear why that is. It could be explained away as them being unable to properly identify and speak about their emotions as twelve year olds, but that also feels like a bit of a writing excuse to me.

I came for a coming of age graphic novel and left with so much more. Initially I just really want to read this one for obvious reasons (I literally had to read a novel with my name on it) but the way the authors covered such hard topics in such sensitive ways just really blew me away. The raw emotions of loss, packed into a story about a summer of growing up just really had me engaged. I don’t mind the art style but it was truly the plot that kept me involved. Thank you NetGalley and First Second Books for the chance to read this arc in exchange for my honest review.

This was a graphic novel that I started reading without having any idea as to what it was about, and I was pleasantly surprised. I thought that it handled a lot of difficult situations especially for the age range quite well.

This title was a little hard for me to get through. However, it definitely speaks to the issues some kids have when they have absent parents.

TW: Teen Pregnancy.

This book is very special. It follows the quiet, slightly strange summer of a twelve-year-old girl named Rhiannon, who lives with her agoraphobic aunt in a retirement town. Each summer, her friend Kit visits his grandma nearby, and this time, their world gets shaken up by Elizabeth, a sixteen-year-old punk girl also staying with her grandmother for the season.

Rhiannon is a lonely, hypochondriac kid with albinism, and her daily life is divided between running errands for her aunt, wandering the eerily quiet town, and the little window of freedom she finds at night: feeding a coyote, rollerblading, sliding down a hill on a trash can lid. I loved how her life was portrayed, mundane yet tender, touched with both love and a subtle sense of confinement. The setting, this quiet town full of aging residents, feels stifling but not without affection between all its residents. And even though Rhiannon has a lot on her shoulders (like being the one to do all the errands because of her aunt’s condition), she obviously loves her aunt very much and doesn’t resent her.

One thing I appreciated was the quiet message the book delivers: that at the heart of it, these characters, despite living with grief, instability and isolation, are just kids. They’re trying, in their own flawed, sometimes clumsy ways, to make sense of a complicated world. There’s a certain heaviness to the story, but it’s softened by the fact that it’s told from a child’s perspective, full of small wonders, confusion, and unspoken emotion.

That said, there were parts that didn’t fully work for me. I didn’t love how Kit was treated at times, but it also felt realistic. They’re all still learning how to handle big feelings with very limited tools. Elizabeth is sixteen, Rhiannon and Kit are twelve, and they’ve each been through things that would overwhelm most adults. It makes sense that they sometimes hurt each other, intentionally or not, while trying to navigate their closeness and independence.

Visually, I liked the art overall, but something about Rhiannon’s face felt off to me. Everyone else’s expressions felt natural, but hers, especially her eyebrows and the two vertical lines near her eyes confused me and didn’t quite match the tone or style of the rest of the characters.

Still, despite those quirks, Rhiannon is a beautiful and moving story. It’s not exactly happy or fluffy, but it’s heartfelt and full of quiet insight. It captures what it feels like to be young and lonely, to live in a world that feels too big, too old, and too indifferent, yet still reach out, still look for meaning, still try to connect. It’s a heavy story in places, but it’s light too.

Once again Brinkman and Chiki deliver a beautiful graphic novel. I mean, I really liked Lucy in the Sky, but I LOVE Rhiannon. Wow. I laughed out loud. I cried. It was simply put, perfect. You never really stop coming of age.

Graphic novels have a unique way to conveying a story that isn't necessarily possible in a traditional novel. Rhiannon (and Kiara Brinkman and Sean Chiki) captures one transformative summer for the teen protagonist as she navigates changing relationships among family, friends and even a first love. The illustrations along with snippets of songs/song lyrics and Rhiannon's journal entries all create a vivid picture of a confusing period of time when you're trying to understand your place in the world, connecting to others in new and different ways and exploring some topics that are bigger and heavier than what you've had to deal with previously. Although I'm further out from this period of my life (yes, I love YA even though I'm definitely not YA anymore), the themes still resonate and, as an educator, I know this will be a story that many of our students will devour quickly.

Many thanks to First Second and NetGalley for the e-ARC.