When Ida is sent away for the sum­mer to stay with the Mur­phys — friends of her father, but also of Zel­da and Scott Fitzger­ald — she trav­els from New York to France and, unknow­ing­ly, into the artis­tic epi­cen­ter of 1929. There, she meets their haughty, sullen, and pre­co­cious daugh­ter, Hono­ria, and won­ders if she can be friends with the pret­ti­est girl in the whole world. In the ​“per­fect invert­ed world” of adults, one of con­stant play and leisure — and ine­bri­a­tion, of course — it’s the chil­dren who most acute­ly per­ceive the per­va­sive unhap­pi­ness bub­bling beneath the sur­face gaiety.

Aching­ly sad and effort­less­ly fun­ny, full of the kind of youth­ful sin­cer­i­ty uncloud­ed by pre­tens­es of age, short sto­ry writer and car­toon­ist Jan­ice Shapiro’s debut graph­ic nov­el, Hono­ria, is the com­plex sto­ry of the edu­ca­tion of two young girls who have start­ed mov­ing slow­ly into womanhood.