Review Detail

Lola and Grace are best friends who have very different family lives; while Lola lives with just her mother, Grace has siblings and parents whom Lola thinks are close. The girls are obsessed with crushes, and are trying to understand the dynamics of how romance works among their peers, so start a scientific study. Why is Felicity Sunshine the object of all the boys' desires? Why is it so hard for Lola to talk to Noah? Why does gossipy Charlie know what all of the other girls are doing? Watching those around them and talking to new people at school, Lola and Grace try to find out how romance works through anecdotal evidence. While they are doing this, Lola finally talks to Noah, and the two start going out and kissing. Meanwhile, Grace's parents fight more and more, and she fears that they might get divorced. The girls grow apart, and make new friends. Lola finds herself talking more to Felicity, who isn't interested in all of the attention that she gets but would rather study astrophysics. Grace finds herself confiding in Adele, who is so prickly because she had a bad experience with a boy who went too far (he put his hand under her shirt, which is shown discreetly in a panel) and was afterwards labeled a "bimbo" and a "slut". When Noah breaks up with Lola because he is trying to befriend the "cool kids" at school and they tell him to drop her, Lola is heartbroken. She misses Grace and realizes that she hasn't been there for her friend. Will the two be able to start to understand both the nature of friendship and the nature of love as they try to survive their tween years?