Spirited and inclusive, this is a fresh take on the coming-of-age tale.
An aspiring young fashionista leaves Idaho in pursuit of her dream in this graphic novel.
Blanca has just graduated from high school, but her controlling mother already has her whole future mapped out for her. This plan starts with business school and does not end with Blanca working as a fashion designer, which is what she wants for herself. So, while her mom’s out of town at a real estate conference, Blanca runs away and heads to…New York, of course. She quickly discovers that New York is a tough town—especially for someone who’s not a fast walker by nature—but she gets a break when a guy at a coffee shop notices her sketching. Soon, she’s living in a brownstone full of men, most of them gay and most nurturing dreams as big as Blanca’s. Emile is saving up for cooking school. Evan has a plan for revitalizing the bar where he performs as Thai Dishes. Andy just wants to figure out who he is. Brady hopes to make it as a photographer—and to hook up with the house’s one bona fide success, a model named Nic. Meanwhile, Blanca’s mother is searching for her. And our heroine’s realization that her new boyfriend might not be who—or what—he says he is adds a note of drama. Anslow’s artwork is fun, and there’s a one-page panel set in the American Museum of Natural History that is absolutely terrific. Aguirre’s colors are as vibrant as the imagery is dynamic. The writing is lively, and it’s nice to see that the authors didn’t feel the need to translate the Spanish; instead, they let context and pictures help those who don’t know the language. And if there’s a special award for inventing drag queen names, Blas and Newton deserve it for “Salvador Dalí Parton.”
Spirited and inclusive, this is a fresh take on the coming-of-age tale.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781637154540
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Oni Press
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
I Who Have Never Known Men ($22.00; May 1997; 224 pp.; 1-888363-43-6): In this futuristic fantasy (which is immediately reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale), the nameless narrator passes from her adolescent captivity among women who are kept in underground cages following some unspecified global catastrophe, to a life as, apparently, the last woman on earth. The material is stretched thin, but Harpman's eye for detail and command of tone (effectively translated from the French original) give powerful credibility to her portrayal of a human tabula rasa gradually acquiring a fragmentary comprehension of the phenomena of life and loving, and a moving plangency to her muted cri de coeur (``I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct'').
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 1-888363-43-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
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