I'll preface this and say I have never read the novel, but I absolutely loved this graphic novel adaptation. Emily Carroll's beautiful, poignant art accents the text in the most perfect way. I cannot fully express how much I absolutely love this one.

I love Melinda so much. Despite her trauma, she is charming, honest, and expressive, and... Really, I'm just reeling from reading this. I loved it so much, and I cried reading the last fourth of the book.

As you can read from the synopsis, this book handles trauma, sexual assault, and bullying, but it handled these themes extremely well. There is no extreme graphic content, but you know exactly how Melinda is feeling and I loved how Carroll portrayed her emotions so clearly without trying to go for any sort of shock value. Her horror anthology, "Through the Woods" also goes for something similar. I don't want to say more because I want very badly to discuss this with a friend, and I also don't want to spoil anything.

Read this one. This one is definitely staying in my permanent library.