Friends with Boys

Faith Erin Hicks’s Friends with Boys, published by First Second, is a standalone graphic novel that follows a homeschooled teen navigating the social minefield of public high school for the first time. Hicks, writing and illustrating the entire story, blends a coming-of-age tale with a subtle supernatural thread as the protagonist contends with new friendships, family dynamics, and a persistent ghost. A warm, character-driven work from the early 2010s, it’s a notable entry in Hicks’s acclaimed catalog of young adult comics.