Last year’s “All Summer Long,” the start of the ‘Eagle Rock’ series by Hope Larson, was one of the best comics of 2019. Larson managed to make me nostalgic for middle school, which is something I wasn’t aware was possible, and made a number of difficult connections with the work. “All Together Now,” the second book in the series, continues Bina’s journey once school is back in session. And, much like “All Summer Long,” it is a wonderfully evocative journey through one of life’s most exciting and frustrating times.
Written, illustrated, and lettered by Hope LarsonCover by Hope Larson
Colored by Hilary Sycamore and Karina EdwardsAll Together Now is New York Times bestselling author and illustrator Hope Larson’s pitch-perfect graphic novel follow-up for fans of All Summer Long, music lovers, and anyone navigating the ups and downs of friendship.
Middle-schooler Bina is having the best time playing in her new band with her friends, Darcy and Enzo. But both the band and her friendships begin to crumble when Darcy and Enzo start dating, effectively relegating Bina to third-wheel status.
To make matters worse, Bina’s best friend, Austin, starts developing a crush on her . . . one she is not sure she reciprocates. Now Bina must follow her heart. Can she navigate its twists and turns before the lights come up and the music starts playing?
Aside from the characters all being slightly older, the biggest change between “All Summer Long” and “All Together Long” is the hue that Larson uses to color the pages. Gone is the “Summer” orange, replaced by mauve. This adds a visual cue to the romantic entanglements that will populate the book, but relationships aren’t the only things that are romantic in this book. This book is a love story, but not between any two characters. It is the story of Bina’s love of music, which takes precedent over everything else in her life.
Larson illustrates this by having everything else in Bina’s life fall away when presented as a challenger to her pursuit of her music. Music is also the only thing that Bina will happily struggle with; she gets frustrated with her friends/bandmaters and with her romantic misadventures. When she’s frustrated with music, she’s frustrated with herself, not with the process or with her work. Music is the purest thing in her life, and she will fight for it.
When Bina is fully engaged with music, Larson’s normally quite ordered artwork begins to morph and change. This is both from a compositional standpoint – music brings out shadow and onomatopoeia in her work – but it also changes Bina and Darcy and Enzo from kids who are trying, in that most middle school of ways, to be invisible, into being open and embracing who they are. We see this in Bina’s choice of gig-going dress, in Enzo (finally, and just barely) smiling while playing at GBGB, and in how open and exuberant Bina is when listening to music. This is a stark change from the more conservative, buttoned up emotions that she has to display elsewhere.
One of the most effective parts of the book are the attempts by Bina to capture the muse. She struggles with putting pen to paper, which is a feeling all-too-familial to many creative types. Her creativity is kick-started by both a trip to Joshua Tree and the introduction of a new potential romance. Nature and love are time-honored inspirations, and they both help Bina unlock some new ideas, but neither is present as a cure-all. Writer’s block is a much debated topic, and “All Together Now” doesn’t claim to have any answers, but it does offer some good tips and tricks, which is an unexpected inclusion in a middle grades graphic novel, instead of an artistic self-help book.
Bina’s search for musical identity is the primary driver of the book, but Larson also touches on the all-important, especially in eighth grade, search for community, and how romance can muck up the works a bit. Bina wants a band more than a boyfriend, and sort of gets both, but can’t hold onto either. This is because both the band and the boy imposed romance on a situation that Bina didn’t want to get romantic. She wanted a friend, but he wanted more. She wanted a band with Darcy and Enzo, but they wanted more. Bina finds herself on the outside, but ultimately decides it is more important to be her on the outside than someone else on the inside.
“All Together Now” is a more complicated tale than “All Summer Long,” but it is because there is almost nothing in it that comes easily to Bina. This book is the story of her struggles, but the most refreshing part is that her struggles are never presented as anything insurmountable, but they also aren’t slagged off as mere ‘middle school’ problems: her mom treats her writer’s block seriously, Charlie accepts Darcy’s musical betrayal as the big deal it is to Bina. This allows the reader to join with Bina in her triumphs and her failures, not just as a memory of being 13, but in life right now. The consideration and attention Larson gives her characters, whether we can relate or not, allows the reader to empathize and journey with them, through this weird reality we are all sharing.
