A semi-autobiographical graphic novel about an 11-year-old girl in suburban Kentucky navigating friendships, growing up, and having obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
Homeschooled Katie realizes that being homeschooled makes her different, as do her freckles and crooked teeth. She knows this doesn’t matter to her forever best friend Kacey, who is also homeschooled—but during the summer before sixth grade, at sleepaway camp, Katie finds herself also making friends with another girl, the cool and confident Delaney. Kacey feels left out, and suddenly their friendship seems like it might not last forever.
Katie’s anxieties increase, and an upcoming minor surgery (a lingual frenectomy) doesn’t help. Her obsessive thoughts are represented as bees buzzing around her head, sometimes singly and sometimes swarming, which she copes with through behaviors like tapping doorknobs or turning on the faucet a certain number of times to help the worries go away.
She tries to focus on things like drama class and begins to make new friends through a local musical theater company. Eventually, though, she tells her parents about her obsessive thoughts and behaviors. They are sympathetic and her dad assures her that what she is experiencing isn’t uncommon and she’s not “weird.” He suggests talking with a professional—and while this doesn’t happen immediately, Katie does feel better knowing she’s not alone in this.
Author Kathryn Ormsbee notably makes Katie more than just her mental health challenge but also offers a sympathetic look at having OCD, informed by her own experience. There’s no clear queer inclusion here, but apparently Katie will develop a crush on a girl in the upcoming sequel, so I am tagging this “Bisexual/pansexual girl” assuming her identity will reflect Ormsbee’s own. Queer inclusion or not, this is nevertheless an engaging and original coming of age story that should find many fans.
Katie and her family are White; her peers are a variety of racial/ethnic identities.
