How It All Ends

Thirteen-year-old Tara Gimmel believes that she can do anything. But when she’s enrolled in a “special academic program to challenge high-performing students” and promoted straight to high school, Tara is faced with a new, terrifying reality she doesn’t feel prepared for. She quickly learns that high school is nothing like the teen dramas she’s watched. Worse, when she encounters her older sister and best friend Isla at school, Isla adopts a persona Tara doesn’t recognize. Then Tara is partnered with classmate Libby for a Greek mythology project, and quickly develops a crush. Her constant internal monologue, which is depicted in rich red hues, is only interrupted by conversations she’s having IRL, a mechanism that often results in hilarious—and embarrassing—scenarios. Using borderless panels teeming with cartoon illustrations rendered in ink with a limited color palette to quickly alternate between Tara’s real life and her internal thoughts, Hunsinger (My Parents Won’t Stop Talking) explores what it’s like to be an especially inexperienced fish out of water in this vibrant, comedic character sketch. Character skin tones match the white of the page, with blue hues connoting varying shades. Agent: Molly O'Neill, Root Literary. Ages 8–up. (Aug.)