Day 6 - Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong

Day 6. :) Another review day. One-half of the duo behind this graphic novel is Canadian, so it counts for the event. :) Don't tell me it doesn't count. ;)

Faith Erin Hicks is a writer and artist currently living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Previous books include Zombies Calling and The War at Ellesmere. In 2012, her graphic novel Friends with Boys, a coming of age featuring a ghost and a musical about zombies, was published by First Second. This past February, Dark Horse Comics released her The Adventures of Superhero Girl, the trials and tribulations of a young superhero battling both the supernatural and the mundane. Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong is a collaboration between artist Faith and writer Prudence Shen updated online every weekday (until tomorrow when the book is officially published). You can find her at her website and on Twitter (@faitherinhicks). :)

Title: Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong
Author: Prudence Shen
Artist: Faith Erin Hicks
Release Date: May 7, 2013
Publisher: First Second

You wouldn’t expect Nate and Charlie to be friends. Charlie’s the laid-back captain of the basketball team and Nate is the neurotic, scheming president of the robotics club. But they are friends, until Nate declares war on the cheerleaders. At stake is funding that will either cover a robotics competition or new cheerleading uniforms, but not both. It's only going to get worse: after both parties are stripped of their funding on grounds of abominable misbehavior, Nate enrolls the club's robot in a battlebot competition in a desperate bid for prize money. Bad sportsmanship? Sure. Chainsaws? Why not. Running away from home on Thanksgiving to illicitly enter a televised robot death match? Of course!

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong is a fun and entertaining look at how everything can, in fact, go wrong when a plan that makes sense to one person makes no sense to anyone else. How you think you can plan for every contingency only to have everything blow up in your face. How you enter the mad rush to fix it to salvage what you've worked for. How friendships help you through hard times.

In high school, there are different kinds of teenagers. Jocks, nerds, goody-two-shoes, (snobbish) cheerleaders. But they're all the same in a way. They all have their plans and their schemes, their hopes for the future, their interests, their weird family situations. In a place deep down on the inside, they're all the same. Even the cheerleaders that are a bit more threatening than the average cheerleader.

Nate and Charlie seem to be two opposites, two different sides of the high school social spectrum, but they're still friends. They don't have to be the same person, they don't always have to agree. This book is an interesting look at friendship, how important it is even when you've drifted apart a little, how it sticks around after so many years, and how it keeps you together through some really hard times.

It's a learning experience for everyone, mostly (I'm not sure if the cheerleaders learned anything, as creepy and dangerous as they are), and especially for Charlie and Nate. Stuff happens when you're in high school, things in and around your life change and you think everything is ruined, but you have to move on and home everything will work out. And you never go along with one of Nate's plans ever again. Ever.

The story was entertaining and hilarious, their were impossible hijinks but also some serious consequences, and the artwork was clear, all the characters had their own little quirks and differences and ways of expressing themselves. A must-read for graphic novel fans.

(I received an e-galley of this title to review from First Second through NetGalley.)