cecil castellucci – Alison McCarty

This book is the sequel to The Plain Janes, which I read for class and thought was very cute. This one is equally as adorable.

It’s shortly after the great New Year’s Eve shenanigans. The Janes are up to their old art tricks, until they get caught for reals this time and Jane is unsure if this art thing is something she should be doing. But then she finds out that she could be getting a grant for PLAIN to keep going and she makes it her mission to get that grant, even though all those adult types are against her again. Meanwhile, there’s a girls-ask-boys dance that I don’t really care about that’s all fraught with emotion. Blah blah blah.

I liked this book slightly less than I liked the original, mostly because of the relationship business (barf), but I still enjoyed it! The art style is wonderful and the different “art attacks” amuse me. If you want a sweet quick read, grab this book and the one before it.

Rating: 6.5/10
(A to Z Challenge, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

See also:
Book Nut

Pass me yours, if you’ve got ’em.

Well, this was a seriously perfect beach read — nice and quick, so I didn’t get a sunburn! I must remember these things in the future. 🙂

The plot: After a bomb goes off in Metro City and lands Jane in the hospital for a little while, her parents move the family off to suburbia to start a new, safer life. Of course, this sucks for Jane, especially since she gets to start school six weeks late. At her first lunch, she’s invited to sit with the popular kids, but gravitates instead to a group of girls who share her name — Jayne, Polly Jane, and another Jane. They don’t accept her at first, but Jane is determined, so she comes up with a way to bring the foursome together: stealth art attacks. The “attacks” are really just art displays like rock pyramids or a balloon solar system, but the school and the police take them pretty seriously, leading to some delightful civil disobedience.

It’s not a terribly deep book, but I loved seeing the art pieces the Janes put together — this is a graphic novel, so you really get to see what’s going on! I was never really arty, but I would totally have helped build some of the Janes’ structures if someone else had designed them. I also remembered not so fondly that need to be accepted in high school and the way that parents want to take care of you but you just want to do your own thing.

Rating: 7/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2007, A to Z Challenge, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

Alison McCarty

Librarian of the Future

Tag: cecil castellucci

Janes in Love, by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg

The Plain Janes, by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg