Lauren R. Weinstein confronts adolescence head-on in this collection of comics, and it isn’t pretty. But it is funny, as well as painful, awkward, and sometimes cruel. Her main character—also named Lauren—is smart enough to know that playing with Barbies at thirteen isn’t cool (even with a girl-power, twenty-first-century feminist subtext), and honest enough to admit that she wants to be cool, no matter how shallow it is. Weinstein’s strips follow Lauren through incidents in middle and high school, from social missteps to serious kissing, body piercing to breaking up. A short series of “Bonus Comics” offers the author/illustrator’s feminist commentary on body image, identity, self-worth and more. Her art style suggests controlled frenzy, and the humor is often satirical in this sophisticated graphic novel. (Age 14 and older)

A graphic novel jam-packed with the joys and humiliations of being a teenage girl

Girl Stories began as a series of comics drawn for the teen girls' Web site gurl.com, where they generated thousands of e-mails from teenage girls (and some boys too).

Expanded into a full-length graphic novel, these tales of one girl's adolescence are hilarious, heartbreaking, and honest. Lauren R. Weinstein tells the horrible truth about growing up, surviving embarrassing parents, bullies from hell, best friends, boyfriends, breakups, and trying too hard to be cool--and it has never been funnier.