Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci & Jim Rugg

First book in a new series aimed at teenage girls, DC comics recruited novelist Castellucci (Boy Proof, 2004, and The Queen of Cool, 2005) to write this story about outsiders who come together, calling up themes from the author's popular YA novels.

Relocated to suburbia after a brush with disaster in the big city (aka Metro City) Jane and her family relocate to Suburbia. She has changed her entire phsical image down to coloring and cutting her hair drastically, interestingly enough both of her parents are hair dressers so can get jobs anywhere! We learn through the novel that Jane was close to a bomb that explouded leaving a mysterious man in a coma. She would visit him daily in the hospital, sharing her inner most thoughts and worries. Fueled by a notebook she found from a man she takes it with her and continues his diary so to speak.

She finds the urge not to be terrified of the world as a result, Jane rallies a small group of outcasts (all named some form or spelling of Jane) into a team of "art terrorists," called P.L.A.I.N. -- People Loving Art In Neighborhoods. Shaking the high school and town from its conservative complacency by putting bubbles in the city fountain and wrapping objects on the street as Christmas packages. Their activities end up rallying the local teenagers to their cause and working the adults into a dither. The book has its share of stereotypes--popular barbie dolls, droll drauma queen, the science geek, the psychotically overprotective mother, the irrepressible gay teen and the seemingly uninterested, distant boy who she is of course attracted to.

This book has been getting a lot of positive reviews hence why I wanted to read it but it felt rather flat and safe to me. After reading such fabulous graphic novels featuring rebel teens in "Ghost World" I was disappointed. I was discussing it with a friend of mine and we both agreed that it was for those who fear graphic novels so this helps them feel like now here is something not too risque. Too bad as it had a good premise.