No Ivy League

Hazel is a seventeen-year-old homeschooled student living in Portland, Oregon. Being homeschooled has made people viewed her as sheltered and not exposed to the real world of attending public high school, even though she meets up with other homeschooled kids. One summer, while her friends work on entering a video contest to raise money to visit someone in Washington D.C., Hazel joins the “No Ivy League” summer work group hiring at-risk teens to help clear English Ivy from Forest Park in Portland. Will she be able to get along with a wide, and diverse, group of young people? Or will she be able to become friends with them even though they are different?

This is a lot of coming of age memoirs that are starting to pop up more frequently in the graphic novel section of bookstores. The main character will grow and question her life until an epiphany happens and she becomes a better person. While there are a handful of unanswered questions by the end of the book, you journey along with Hazel as she grows and realizes there is a bigger world out beyond her home.