Gr 10 Up-The cruelties, indignities, rebellion, and lack of self-confidence that form the high school experiences of many teens are well captured in this follow-up to Escape from "Special" (Fantagraphics, 2007), the author's middle school memoir. At 15 and 16, Melissa's biggest downfall was that she couldn't control her honesty or soften her expressions of it, leading to messy situations in the classroom, with her friends and family, and, most important, her peace of mind. She uses her given name of Melissa Gross for her high school persona, and readers get to see her earliest efforts to sell her comics and also an explanationfilled with teenage righteousnessfor her nom de plume. Imagery here is fraught with some nearly nightmarish (and succinctly credible from an adolescent perspective) exaggerations of tongues, acne, and even a turd. The artwork is done mostly in muted grays; blue and yellow highlight eyes or hair, and an occasional object also receives soft coloration. This is a spot-on portrait of one girl's struggle for intellectual and emotional honesty, touching on her best friend's anorexia and realizing the humanity of those around herclassmates, her motherwhom she had earlier dismissed as stock characters in the drama of her own life. More symbolic than Ariel Schrag's high school memoirs, this one will touch teens who themselves have just succeeded in negotiating the mess of learning to be a mature social being. Francisca Goldsmith, Halifax Public Libraries, Nova Scotia

Starred Review The stellar follow-up to Escape from "Special" (2008) picks up the semi-autobiographical narrative right where Escape left it. Melissa is in high school, dealing with the problems and pressures of being a teenager as well as with an anorexic best friend, slipping grades, and experiments with drugs, not to mention attempts at romance, the class trip gone wrong, and trying to figure out how to be cool. With her own mixture of insecure angst and sarcastic smarts, Melissa manages to keep pushing forward. Given the burgeoning maturity of the main character, Mess is suitably more intense than Escape, reflecting a sort of ratcheting up of the emotional level, as it were. Heightened narrative intensity conjures a perfect atmosphere for Melissa's adventures in growing up. The art, washed and faded and varying wildly from almost abstract to more traditional comics style, also reflects the moodiness of adolescence wonderfully. The writing comes across as so genuine and true a teen's voice that the book feels more like an illustrated journal, capturing Melissa's awkward emergence from her unique personal perspective. Spot-on about the late-teen experience while avoiding overly nostalgic feelings.