The War at Ellsmere

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For a fuller explanation see my review for 101 Amazing Facts about Australia You can see all the books on their own shelf. Her published works include Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy, Friends with Boys, One Year At Ellsmere, The Adventures of Superhero Girl, The Last of Us: American Dreams (with Neil Druckmann), The Nameless City trilogy, Comics Will Break Your Heart, Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong (with Prudence Shen) and the New York Times bestselling Pumpkinheads (with Rainbow Rowell).

Between finishing The War at Ellsmere and beginning this review, I also read Raina Telgameier's Smile and a couple volumes of Kaoru Mori's A Bride's Story. They never do quite escape their destiny—a fate commanded by demographic—but it’s an admirable attempt and I was happy to be there for it. The book is pretty much exactly what the title says, it’s Juniper’s first year at the prestigious boarding school Ellsmere Academy.She’s a villainous cardboard cut-out rather than a character we get to know, let alone understand her motivations and behaviour.

It lovingly winks at all of the tropes of boarding schools and a lower-class outsider confronting the entitled, ambitious, evil (?Trigger warnings for classism, grief depiction, death of a father from illness recounted, parental neglect mentioned, minor blood depiction, hunting, and bullying. Except for the ending, where a fantastical creature arrives to save the day in a very surprising instance of deus ex machina. Of course, she is strong and fights back against the blonde and tanned mean girl that I forgot the name of even though I read the book like five minutes ago and I can't even be bothered to check. Hicks’ characters are built of expressions and she sells these effortlessly, taking a character through a range of visible, discernible emotions across the space of a single page. It’s not so much that teenagers are shallow (though many are), but their depth of experience certainly is.

We personally found the room a little bit too bright in the morning as the curtains let in a little bit too much light (but that is just our personal preference).Like a window into their day-to-day life, Ellsmere census records can tell you where and how your ancestors worked, their level of education, veteran status, and more. Between finishing The War at Ellsmere and beginning this review, I also read Raina Telgameier’s Smile and a couple volumes of Kaoru Mori’s A Bride’s Story.