• Age: 13 to 17
• Grade: 8 to 12

Teen girls reimagine the universe on a daily basis! This graphic novel proves there's nothing better than using your imagination... except maybe talking nonsense with your friends. Hey, why not both?

Nathalie and Marie are 17 years old and best friends. Since elementary school, they've battled boredom by playing a special game: What If We Were...

The rules are simple: one player names a topic-- fruit! spies! Vikings!-- and then both players imagine what life would be like as that subject.

Easy to play, but hard to master. A boring player will give a boring answer. An expert player will know how to think outside the box and surprise their opponent. And after all these years, Nathalie and Marie are experts!

But what if... a new player joined their game? And what if... she was really hot??

It'll take more than imagination for Nat and Marie to survive the next round with their hearts intact!

Axelle Lenoir's profile page

Axelle Lenoir started out as a 2D artist in 1999, for a Quebec City video game company. In 2003, craving more creative freedom, she quit and made her first steps in comic books. Her Mertownville trilogy was released by the Switzerland publisher Paquet in the mid-2000s. Since then, Axelle has worked with publishers in France, Belgium, and Canada. Her first English-language graphic novel, Camp Spirit (Top Shelf), is a coming-of-age story about an unlikely friendship between two summer camp counselors. She now returns with a comic strip collection named What If We Were... portraying two teenage girls who invented a weird and funny game to fill their spare time. Axelle's writing style is a mix between humor, everyday life situations, fantasy and comic strips. She likes to write about women, teenagers, folklore, parallel universes and stupid cats.

"This coming-of-age comic captures the joy and creativity of teenage friendship." — Booklist

"Lenoir's fantastic humor and expressive drawing show us a great time and make us fall in love with her charismatic heroes. We miss them as soon as we close the book." — Les Libraires

"Axelle Lenoir has a remarkable talent for capturing adolescence... her female characters, here as in Camp Spirit, are completely credible, and avoid the usual clichés. They're both fragile and strong, shy and extroverted, made of paradoxes." — Sophie Lit

"The concept is original and really well explored... plus the drawing is great! The characters are funny, yet believable - and always fabulously dressed. I really want these two girls to be my best friends!" — Chronicles of a Book Addict

“Beneath the absurdity, this comic hides an unexpected and tender story.” — Librairie La Liberté