I really didn't like this graphic novel. I'm sure some would, but it wasn't my cup of tea...2 stars.This graphic novel is about 3 friends who live in some state, I can't remember. All 3 of their dads are in the War with Afghanistan. The boys are seniors and are bored so they like to dick around town either drinking or fighting. One boy is a good kid with good grades and wants to go to college. One boy is really into joining the military like his dad and I don't really know much about the other k...

A series of artful, full-color vignettes present the intertwined stories of three American teen boys whose fathers are fighting in Iraq. I gobbled this down in one sitting, and I can see my high school boy students really enjoying this. My one beef with this book is the ending. It was resolved enough, but I wanted more.

This story didn't do much for me. The characters never drew me in, and I felt no empathy for them. It is a sad topic, and an important one, but the way it was presented was not very interesting. I think you could find better books on the topic.

I am the wrong audience for this story. Not only that, but this story did not make a whole lot of sense to me as to what is going on.The story starts out with the boys beating the crap out of each other to toughen themselves up while their dads are fighting in Iraq. There little town is gutted by all the men leaving. They are looking for futures in college, something different from their dads, but for some reason after being accepted to college, they join the army anyway.The story is brutal and

This is a quick read, but one that will stay with you. Three boys, Cody, Josh, and Gordon live in Oregon. Their fathers are away at war. Their families are struggling to survive the wait. The boys are faced with situations permeated with violence, at home, at school, in bars where they drink. Sometimes they are the targets of the violence. Mostly they are the ones who cause it.The brightest colors in this book are the flames during funeral pyre for the snowman. The bright red blood of a deer kil...

When I read that this was a graphic novelization of a screenplay adapted from a short story, I got worried. I'd read some good reviews of this, but could it really be that great? But I sped right through it and really felt for the characters. My library serves many military families stationed at Fort Lewis so I felt a special connection with these boy's stories. The plot didn't have as much to do with their backyard boxing ring as I expected. All three boys have very different experiences with t...

Usually, graphic novels take me a while to read because I process the illustrations really thoroughly and that takes time. This graphic novel took me about a half an hour to finish. The illustrations were really plain and simple and the dialogue was really easy to read. Although I found the story of the war in Iraq touching and deep, the dialogue made this book so poor. I felt like I was reading a graphic novel that one of my classmates made. The ending still confuses me; whether the father dies...

Well...I would give it a 3.5. "Refresh, Refresh" is a graphic novel that follows three teen boys (Josh, Cody, and Gordon) all struggling with the "loss" of their fathers who are soldiers in Iraq. They continuously click "refresh" on their computers, hoping for news from their dads. Their frustration and rage grows and festers to the point where they can not contain it and look for ways to vent. They do this in largely unhealthy ways (violence, substance abuse, sex, etc.). The book is disturbing

I don't really know how to write a review of this book, which I guess is why it took me so long to do so. It's so sad, all around, and so hopeless in so many ways. The three boys that are at the center of the story aren't the only ones affected by the war, most of the town is, so there isn't really anywhere for them to go to get away from the worry and fear that they themselves feel. Each of them deals with it in their own ways, coming together for their fights. The prevailing feeling is pain. T...

Although I understood the plight of the boys, this was a little too pro-military for me. It reads like a "Join the Army" brochure. Ponsoldt writes teenage boys very well, and this wasn't what I'd call a waste of time ('course I read it in like 15 minutes). However, the whole tragedy leads to conformity ending really pissed me off.

This sounded like it was going to be a lot more interesting and deep than it turned out to be. Very few words throughout the entire thing. It was one of those reads that was mostly pictures, and that had just enough conversation to fill in the blanks and make some impact.Overall, I don't have much to say about this book. It was so swift and without anything really of consequence that I read the entire thing, front to back, in less than half an hour. I took no breaks, and whatever thoughts I had

A disturbing tale of three high school boys living in a small town. Their fathers, like many people in the town, have been shipped off to the Iraq war. Left to take on responsibilities and face realities about violence and adulthood, the boys flounder but maintain a tight friendship. The art is not great (I was surprised to learn the artist had used models for the characters, as I had a hard time telling them apart), but there are a few scenes of beauty or well-conveyed emotion.

“Refresh Refresh” is a book...well a comic book. This comic book is a 10/10 in my opinion. It details a lot of info that makes you understand it, and gets you really attached to the book. But I am going to try my hardest to not spoil the book for you, so just keep on reading this review so you can know how this book was for me, and maybe make you get the book too. This comic book was a really interesting book. It showed some really good pictures of the events happening in the book. “Refresh Refr...

Aaargh! This book has had me tied up in knots since I finished it yesterday. I don't know if it's because of the air of quiet desperation hovering around the pages, that certain knowledge that NOTHING will end well for anyone, or if it's the fact that I have two teenaged boys whose futures I'm worried about... It's not a pleasant feeling.The boys in this story live in rural Oregon. Their fathers are fighting in Iraq. There's not much to do but hang out in the Walmart parking lot, drink, and get

Really a 3 1/2 but the message was so strong I couldn't bear to give it a three.Very intense. It was a quick read, but it packed a lot in that quick read. It was a little hard to keep track of some of the characters as some of them looked very similar. It seems to be a very small town, and almost every adult male is in the military, but there are a couple of times when you wonder how small it is since the boys get into the bars so easily. The end is so dark and bleak it just causes shivers to ru...

Danica Novgorodoff has been my new favorite artist since I read Slow Storm. She works in watercolors and her style is beautiful. The story is also heartwrenching, about boys growing up in a nowhere town where everyone joins the army and goes to Iraq. I don't know anything else about this author though. But I will probably love anything she illustrates, I hope she keeps it up.

(MY OPINION ALERT!)i read refresh,refresh. this book takes place during the Iraq war this book is about boys who want to be men. it demonstrates the savage nature of man by showing the viewer how the kids glorify war and look at it as a game. josh on the other hand wants no part in the war, he wants to go to collage.in my opinion this book was horrible it did not make any logical sense what so ever. all these kids do is fight each other for no reason. they beet up people and stole there stuff. t...

** help and insight neededI really didn't like this book. I am still trying to decide whether it was bad and problematic as a whole or if it bad and problematic on purpose to try and provoke a response in the reader. I am interested in looking through some of the other reviews from some other readers.I originally bought this book at a book warehouse sale because I was trying to expand my classroom library. Most of my books had female leads and weren't about subjects such as war, so I snatched th...

A quality story with a classic plot to it This book was well worth the time spent! The author James Ponsoldt really did a marvelous job with his story line in this book. He did a good job of describing the lives of not just the main characters, but also the remaining parts that are not as important, but is still needed to explain the situations well.One of the reasons why i really love this book is because even at a few of its driest parts, the book still has a type of cling to it that ke...

Refreshing the computer screen has become a way of life for high school seniors Josh, Gordon, and Cody, whose fathers have deployed to Iraq. They keep a near constant vigil over their email accounts to intercept any communication the moment it arrives. When they aren’t monitoring their messages, they spend their time sneaking into bars, orchestrating knock-down drag-out fights with one another, and talking about their futures. Novgorodoff solemnly examines each character both in the context of h...