The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg

This is the debut graphic novel in the Minx line for girls by publisher DC Comics. The main character is a girl named Jane. As she walks past a sidewalk café in Metro City, a terrorist's bomb goes off. Taking this as a life-altering event, the once long-haired blonde Jane cuts off all her locks and dyes them black.. Her parents, overtaken by fear, move the family to the small town in the country. Wanting to find a more substantial group of friends, she forgoes the popular airheads at her new school—reminiscent of her Metro City friends—and attempts to befriend a group of unpopular girls who are, coincidentally, all named Jane. Each Jane is unpopular in different ways—one is "Brain Jane," one an aspiring actress and one an athlete. With Jane's love of art, the girls form a secret girl gang called PLAIN—People Loving Art in Neighborhoods—and set out to make their world a better place. They build pyramids on the site of a planned strip mall ("The pyramids lasted for thousands of years. Do you think this strip mall will?") and populate the police department's lawn with gnomes. But to a community consumed with elevated threat levels, the attacks seem more ominous than generous, and P.L.A.I.N. becomes an outlaw group. All the while, Jane continues to write letters to John Doe, the unidentified man whose life she saved during the bombing—and who sits in a hospital, comatose, his sketchbook serving as her muse.
The book is a quick read and interesting. The plot deals with current issues in a new and different way. The writing seemed a little choppy and the plot was disjointed at times, but this book will probably appeal to middle school students.
Recommended grade levels: 6-8