We will say that out of the two this version (the original, non-graphic novel) would be our preference… even though we love the illustrations in the other. Now that we have reviewed both, there are times when the graphic novel version loses a small detail that is important, or adds something that took away. As an example, when Katie uses her phone in class, the regular book version does a better job of showing she knew it was wrong and genuinely not knowing what came over her. These types of details are important.

Here we also get an even better glimpse of the positive relationship between Katie and her mom, as in when she eventually tells her the trouble she has been having and gets some really solid advice.

Another even more important detail is a better handling of the pain of divorce. Besides just the unfortunate addition we pointed out at the top of the concerning content section of that book, here in the original book we see more detail of Katie’s own struggle with divorce. At a couple points we see references to her dad’s ‘sorry, but’ as in when he tells her “I’m sorry Katie, but I can’t come visit you this summer…” later finding he has not seen her in years. This is much more accurate than the graphic novel’s ‘no big deal’ comment.