Like any kid I never really liked school, siting in a uncomfortable plastic chair with a desk that had obscene doodles and eraser marks that could be only seen at specific angle, having to listen to the teacher go on and on about a subject I most likely wasn't interest in. Most of the times I would think of ways that could get me out of this prison, and I would give anything to miss a day of school, but one of the few schooldays I wouldn't dare to miss was when the book fair was in town (well..school).  I always loved  books growing up as a kid, I loved passing by the libary in the hallway and seeing them set the red cardboard shelves, and setting up the scholastic sign. I would wait days on end excited for when would line up and go to the library, so we could participate in the festivity.

     Now, looking back it, the teachers were probably prompt to take us to the book fair anyways to push us to read more. It work for me,but I already loved reading anyways. I remember it had to take at least three trips to the bookfair. One to see which book I wanted, then when I went home I would ask my mom for money and I could only get at least one book so I really had to make it count, Two, on the second trip if I hadn't gotten my money yet and/or to see if I still wanted the book this trip was mostly to check if the book was still there I would be on the edge the most at stage because the book fair would only last for a week until it was gone. Finally, the third and final trip when I had finally got the money, I would almost race to be the first to one to walk in (or most of the time the teacher would let me be the line leader so I would be first one to enter, I was always a good kid and the teacher knew how much I liked to read)  and ran to obtain my objective. With my book in hand I would open and read as so as I got it and I was usually always and forever satisfied with the choice I had made....Until one day...  

    It was the middle of  first semester of 6th grade, and it was that time of the school year again book fair week, it was my first book fair middle school. It was during advisement/lunch time, the rule in middle school was that since they were preparing us for high school and most kids were losing their passion for reading or just didn't care, we could go to book fair by ourselves. So, I went in a small group of kids from my class and start my old routine of  book fairs pre usual. At this time during middle school I was going through my comic/manga phase since my middle school had a small comic and manga section.( this was also the start of my short live or if you could even call it because it was so short of my small weeaboo phase, but that's a story for later) so since I liked the comic books they had at school, I decided the the book fair was the prefect place for looking for new comics.

  Luckily, I stumbled upon a book titled "Smile" the cover of book had a yellow smiley face with semi reflective braces on it's teeth, the smiley face really stood out against the teal background. The book was heartier the other comics at school that were pretty slim.  I decided to thumb through the book, and as I did I saw a page that had a picture of what looked like the main character laying down near a pool of blood. I remember that this was one of the reason I wanted to get the book because I thought "Wow the character must  have like almost died the very beginning of the book!". By the looks of the art made it seem like the typical slice of life stories I usually enjoy, so to have that scene in there was pretty shocking to my young mind. I wanted to know how the main character was going to recover after such a tragic and dramatic event.  I obsessed over the book for mostly of that week, I remember that it was the only book I got at the book fair when it was the near the end. I felt so happy when I finally got Smile and I was so happy, I took it home and read it over thanksgiving break....

I fell in love with the book immediately, I loved the art, loved and related to the main character Raina, and  I loved how it was based on a true story. What I really like was the ending and I hoped the  same thing would happened to me in highschool, since at the time middleschool wasn't really that great.  So, anytime I would feel down or discourage about something I would read this book to remind me to keep going as stora of motivation, but then around 7th grade I lost the book and I didn't find until around 11th grade. I was pretty happy when I read it again, I realized something....The book kind of sucked now. I was really confused I was like is this the book I fell in love with and almost got depressed 'cause I lost it?! It was like  I was reading a totally different book I was so baffled by it keep bothering me for longest. So, now I have blog I decided that this was the first thing I should blog about since it was a real big change to me...(also this isn't a review of the book, just a perspective on how it change to me as I got older) 

To sum up the book  it's about the author Raina Telgemeier who lived a pretty normal life until one night after a girl scout meeting , her friends challenge her to a race to the porch trying to catch up to her friend she accidentally trips and falls face first on to the street, knocking out her two front teeth in the process. From then on most of the book's about her visits to the dentist for her braces (Which she was going to get anyways) and to make sure her two front teeth grow back in normally. All this while trying to survive both puberty, and middle/high school.

The  first of thing I notice when re-reading the book is that Raina's a really boring character. I've read other books like Smile with young female protagonist and I have say Raina's the most boring and basic out of all of them.  I mean I just it to make her a relatable character for tweens  but doesn't mean you have to make her boring.  There's nothing I really say that makes Raina stand out as a character, I mean she reacts to fact the she needs to get braces like any other girl, she has low self-esteem, and is gullible in general and to peer pressure. The only thing that kind of makes her different is that at one point in the book she talks about playing video games, but that only mention a few times in the book and it's gone.  Seeing that this book 's a graphic novel I would think she would at least talk about how or why she started drawing or if she ever made mini comics about her journey with braces and getting teeth surgery, but no the concept of her liking to draw is brought about four times, but is  majorly talk about and focus on once. In a scene where the Little Mermaid first premiered at movies, she goes to see with her family, she around about age 12 and she's in that "I want to be a teenage" phase so she wasn't too excited to see the movie at first but then after watching and falling in love with it, she decides then and there she wants to be an animator. ( I always thought someone who has true passion for drawing never goes  through an "ugh animation's for kids" phase) which you would think that would change her some way to where she can start to embrace herself but she goes right back to worrying  about other think. There are other points that get highlighted on like her getting her ears pierced, and her first crush, but why not talk about the first comic you made, or how drawing help her coped with what happened.

Another, thing about Raina is she kind of jerk too. During seventh grade, Raina is in music class and in that class there's a six grader who quickly develops a crush on her, and she likes the attention. She starts to lightly flirt with him and she even at one point daydreams about being saved by him during an earthquake. Her friends tease her about it but she still likes him, until after watching the little mermaid and discussing it in art class with one of her friends  a guy named Sean over hears them, and Sean says he thought the movie was cool. She instantly falls for him as she starts to think about Sean more and more her six grade crush falls to the wayside.  When the Valentine's day dance rolls around she talks with other  friend about how she wants to go to the dance with Sean instead of the six grader. Her friend suggest that Raina should just ask Sean out,  but Raina wants  Sean to ask her first despite the fact up until this point the only interact she had with the dude was just small talk and smiles.

She  asked Sean if he's going to the dance he basically says no, the next day Raina's friend confirms that Sean's definitely not going to the dance, but the friend suggest Raina should still go come along with all her other friends. Later, her sixth grade crush ask Raina if she's going to the dance and she replies with Yeah..I guess.  When she arrives at the dance  she just stands outside the gym and then goes home. The sixth grade crush feels "crushed" by Raina not showing up to the dance and gives her a bag but she doesn't open it during class, he tells her to just forget it. When Raina gets home she opens the bag to find a cute card with a box of chocolate that was on sale. While she does admit she deserves to be ignored by the sixth grader the next day, she continues to think about her other crush.  There's another example of Raina being a jerk when she's invited to a end of the year party, and at the party they play spin the bottle, all the other boys and girl kiss other and then laugh it off saying how gross it was. Raina passes because she doesn't want some boy to comment on how gross it was that he had to kiss her, which I understand but then she says that all the guys at the party are gross, but it was guy invited her to the party. Also, a few pages before she was saying how some of the guys were easier to talk to than her girlfriends?

Anyways, she goes on to say that she doesn't want her first kiss to happen during a game of spin the bottle with a boy she doesn't even like, she wants everything to be just prefect when it happens. In my opinion, I think the prefect kiss just happens spontaneously you can't really prepare for it, it just happens and you know it happens when makes you feel good inside. One thing that Raina did and didn't do that really got to me was that she want to get Sean attention, and how does she  go about doing this? you ask? she joins the freakin' basketball team because Sean likes basketball, she tries out for team and obviously fails because she doesn't practice before hand and wasn't really good at gym to began with, but I guess you can use the excuse love makes you do crazy things.

What really got me upset about this is the next day her friend then suggest that she should just draw Sean a picture and give to him, but Raina freaks out and chickens out says there's no way she going to do that. This is something  I have actually done with guys that I liked,  Once in high school, and the other with a guy I admire online.  While all I did with my high school crush was show him my sketchbook which I thought was a pretty good idea because he liked to draw too, the reaction I got was a shrug and a "that looks cool". I didn't draw a picture for him because everytime I would ask if he liked this or how he felt about  that he would response with "I don't know." While the online dude I just drew a picture of him, since he said doesn't mind if people draw fan art of him, which I did and he liked it and that made my day. Again, it's not like I wanted him to have same feelings back (I mean he's already taken) but it did get him to notice me and showed how much I admired him (I'm actually working on his birthday drawing as I'm typing on this blog.) All Raina had to do was ask or stalk Sean to see what he likes (or just draw his favorite basketball palyer) make the drawing, hid it in his desk or locker with her name on and that's it, instead of making a fool of herself in front of the entire girls b-ball team.  

Another thing that I realized that made me not like Raina as character is that I feel like she really didn't embrace herself or her quirks. As I grew older I began to noticed that the type of characters I liked were girls who were quirky and embraced their quirkiness throughout their story characters like Nikki for Dork Daries or the girls from the Popluarity Papers. I love these books to this today because these girls know they don't fit in and even though they would try to fit, they like to stand out! but then again those girls have good friends and know when it's time to end of friendship or to take break from someone, and they're not that gullible and they'er  more unique in personality.  Raina didn't really accept herself until she looked like a normal girl and was accepted by others..

So, that's all I have to say about Raina, now on to her friends and also how unrealistic some of things that happen in the book are.. Oh BOI

While kind of stora researching on Amazon reviews about the book, one in particular stated and praised the book for being really realistic.  Which it's not, I know it's based on a true story, but I wouldn't go praise this book for realism. Out of all the things exaggerated in this book I think Raina's friends and their actions are exaggerated to the highest of the heavens.  Okay, So after Raina gets her teeth knock out  and comes back to school all her friends  and especially the one who inadvertently cause her accident feel bad for her and ask her if she's okay, at first that makes you go like okay that's some good friends you got right there, but then after she gets the cast on her teeth remove and her two front teeth are now short than the other her friends comment that it doesn't look that bad. Raina said that she was worry she would look like a baby with her teeth the way they are, but one of friends says that the  pigtails make  her look like a baby, she then goes home and feel conscious  about her looks.  

Raina then gives a note to her teacher saying that she'll won't be there because she has a endodontist appointment, her friend then comments saying "Sounds like it'll be the end of you!"....first of all who talks like this ? Second, your friend had her teeth knock out and now proabably has to go through hours of painful surgeries and procedures to get them back to normal, why would you say something like that!?

 When Raina has a short lived crush on a six grader, when one of her friends find out they reply with "Wow, What a shrimp..." when I told my friends at school I liked someone they would reply with "yeah he's cute", but I guess she just trying to blantly  show how bad her friends were. Another time was when Raina had gotten a retainer as a replacement for her braces temporarily, she complains about how unfair it was that she was going to back to square one and not be cool anymore. One of her friends stated the Raina was never cool, she always looked like a nerd, another friend asked "Who called themselves a nerd" and Raina replies with "nobody" then her friend tease her by calling her a nobody, then Raina gets up and leaves. Her  friends claim that they don't know why she's freaking out. On Raina's thirteenth birthday her friends trick her into dressing up in a ridiculous outfit claiming that's what Sean's into, then Raina gets upset then later ask "What if I went to school dressed up like that!" and one of her friend responses with "yeah,it wouldn't be funny.....it would be hilarious!" then they all start laughing. (I don't know  why she didn't drop kick her friends right then and there but whatever)

The last thing, her friends did before she broke away from them. It was during the first few weeks of high school and because of her braces she had to keep small supply of oral hygiene products in her backpack at school. One day, it all spills out at lunch and her friends tease her for having dog breath, even though they knew about Raina's condition for THIS long since the 6TH GRADE  I MEAN COME ON! anyways, Raina gets upset (again!) and goes to get a snack form the vending machine the two girls in her friend group that bullied her the most decide to "pants" her (even thought she's wearing a jean skirt over leggings and what kind of girls pants their friend even if their teasing her, that's more of a boy thing). They pantsed  her  and everyone in the lunchroom laughed and Raina goes running to the bathroom and cries.  Her friends still claim that she's over reacting and it wasn't that bad because she was wearing leggings.  What I think about the  whole situation is that if this were to happened in real life I could see it happening at like a middle  or elementary school not a high school. Even if it did happened at  a high school with a girl as a victim I don't think anybody would laugh, and girls  who did it would end up looking like jerks or perverts.   

Anyways, Raina stands up for herself finally it was kind lackluster in my opinion (mostly because she didn't drop kick them) She told them she was done with them, she finds some new friends and fun with them , they accept her for who she is, and happily ever after.

So, that's basically what  I think about Smile, even though I don't enjoy it now,  and kind of embarrassed for liking it so much as a  tweenager. I think the real reason why I didn't enjoy the book now because the whole thing's kind of has a little bit a special snowflake story. While I do believe the pain was bad, and  I think the whole situation could have been solved if Raina just took what she had and embraced it, instead of hiding it or being ashamed of it, or asking why the world's being so  unfair to her I just thinks she needed to just deal with it. 

All in all the book's still good to read along as you're under the age of 13 after that it's kind of drag. 

if you made it this long, congratulation and thank you for reading this novel of blog. I'll probably try to blog every week or every other day until I run of the things to blog about.

Well, until next time later days`