Dear Blog,

I recently I finished reading the book Smile, a 224 page book by Raina Telgemeler. The genre is a graphic novel. Raina grew up in San Francisco and she has a degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York. The author got her teeth knocked out when she was in 6th grade, and she always had to explained what had happened to her teeth. So she finally wrote a story about it.  I decided to read this book because there were a lot of different pictures with text. By reading this graphic novel, I could remember the storyline a lot better than a book with no pictures.

The main character, Raina, was playing soccer at night,when all of a sudden, she tripped and fell. She noticed that there was a taste of blood! So she got up and saw her two front teeth scattered on the ground. A couple weeks later, she had to go through endless trips to the dentists and had a huge gap where her teeth should be. And as the days went on, she had to hide what had happened so she wouldn’t have to embarrass herself in front of the whole grade. Raina thinks to herself, “I do look like a baby, but do I really care what anyone else thinks, Yes!”(p.31) As she was just getting used to wearing a retainer, the dentists recommend to go to the orthodontist to be checked for braces. She was pretty miserable and in pain all the time since this whole accident happened. Raina was so embarrassed that she couldn’t find the courage to go to the school dance. Later, the next day, Sammy gave Raina a heart shaped box with chocolates in them. Something that made me feel bad about Raina was when she and a group of girls made her  get a makeover just to impress a guy she liked. But it turned out to be a disaster! The group of girls(the popular ones)made her look crazy so that she would get upset. I felt proud of her when she finally stood up to the popular girls and told them how she felt “ I am NOT going to let the rest of you disrespect me anymore!”(p.191)

I would rate this book a 9 of out 10. Why I wouldn’t rate this book a 10 out of 10 is because the book could have had a little more description. What I liked about this book is all the graphics that it holds. It does help me comprehend a lot more with pictures.

Sincerely,Lydia