The breakout movie of the summer was … actually it wasn’t a movie. It was TV, some internet show. Stranger Things to be exact. And the breakout character of Stranger Things was … not the person anyone expected.

It was the frumpy, bookish best friend of suburban princess Nancy Wheeler. In a time of steroidal superheroes and TV anti-heroes, Barb pushed her way to the front of the 2016 pop culture pack in her unfashionable librarian glasses, blouses made out of grandma’s curtains and mom jeans.

There is just something compelling about her. She isn’t just uncool.... More