Tori Sharp

"Tori makes up stories all of the time, so she has never lived in just one world. Those stories might just save her when her world seems to crumble"--

Just Pretend

Marloes

6.57 on Cawpile which makes this one a high 3 star.

Nadine 

This is one of those books I had high hopes for as it ticks a lot of boxes for our students but it was hard going and to be honest just didn't offer any hope for sibling or parental or peer relationships except a few glimpses and the afterword.
Yes the middle years are tough and yes siblings are hard work as are parents but the pure callousness and unthinking, unfeeling nastiness was very hard to read.
There was also a lot of jumping between the story and the story that was being written and the story being written didn't add much to the story.
When a graphic novel takes you 2 weeks to complete and then you have to force yourself to finish it, it's not a good sign.

Candyce Kirk

Reading someone's memoir makes it hard to rate, because how can you rate someone else's experiences? I will rate how I enjoyed the book and the reading experience. I have to start off by saying that I love the illustrations. Everything is colorful and really stands out. I really enjoyed the art used in Just Pretend.


Tori is 12 years old and dealing with a lot children this age will understand: middle school, friendships growing and changing, siblings and in Tori's case her parents getting divorced. I have to say I really felt the emotions jump off the pages and have to say it did feel realistic. My only "issue" with this one were the time jumps. It happened a couple of times and sometimes it took a little bit before I could place where we were in the story.


Besides Tori's experiences we also get to see her love for creating stories. I loved the enthusiasm and that the author mixed some of this fantasy story through the memoir side of this story. It fit together well and it was fun to see how passionate she was even at a younger age. I feel it also showed us that this was her outlet to deal with everything else going on in her life.


There was also a nice finishing touch at the end where Tori talks about how the story came to be and is based on her life at that age. I also thought it was nice how she showed everyone how drawings came to be and how she put everything together. All in all a very interesting story.

Heather Killeen

Rating: 3.5/5 Fairy Stories

Format: I'd like to thank Tori Sharp and TBR & Beyond Tours for sending me an e-copy of this graphic novel in exchange for an honest review!

Review:
I really enjoyed this sweet and relatable graphic novel memoir! Tori is going through what many kids her age are, dealing with annoying siblings and separated parents. She spends more time in the car than she wants and her friends keep moving away or getting put in different classes. I loved how Tori continually tried to find ways to connect with her friends and worked through her issues with her friends and family members. I found her way of escaping into a fantasy world extremely relatable, as I'm sure many young readers would! Lastly, the art was super cute and colorful, it perfectly matches the youthful, fun, tone of the book.

The plot/story-telling is sort of subtle in this story, it's more about placing the reader in a time of Tori's life than working through some large conflict that gets resolved. I wanted a little more plot but overall enjoyed this story.

I would recommend this to young readers and to readers who also like to write and create their own worlds.

Just Pretend

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