Lovely Little Shelf

The last couple of weeks have really left me in a book rut.  I haven’t loved the books that I’ve chosen, and I’ve read the first 10 or 20 pages of tons of books just trying to find something that would capture my attention. Nothing.

So the other night, I went to the library and picked up a armful of graphic novels.  I figured that they were quicker to read and that they’d keep my attention because they are more visual.

The first graphic novel I ever read was Blankets by Craig Thompson, and I was blown away.  It was beautifully drawn, and just a great, true-to-life story.  Up until this point, I only associated super heros, anime, and science fiction with “comic books” and I don’t really love any of those things.  Since then, I’m pretty sure the only other graphic novels I’ve ever read are the Maus books, which I also fell in love with.

The three that I read, I picked out by going to Amazon and scoping out the “people who have read this have also enjoyed:” strip that was under Blankets.  Here’s what I ended up with:

The Book: Shortcomings, by Adrian Tomine

The Story: This one was about an Asian couple living in California and dealing with a lot of issues.  The guy is just really cynical and sad and the girl wants some freedom.  The guy has an eye for white girls and it stresses his girlfriend out.  The girlfriend is really into the Asian movie scene, which her boyfriend thinks is pretty lame.

We meet the guy’s lesbian best friend and see him at his job at a movie theater. And he really is flirting with a white girl.

The girl makes the announcement that she needs a break and that she’s taking an internship in NYC.  They deal with being apart and so on and so forth.

What I Thought: I liked this one, but I was a little bit annoyed by the cynical boyfriend.  I just didn’t like him and was annoyed at the decisions that he made.  The drawings were really great, and the expressions that were captured in the character’s faces were perfect.

The Book: Ghost World, by Daniel Clowes

The Story: This one is about two girls, post-high school, just trying to figure out what to do with themselves.  They mostly make fun of the people in their city and go around getting into crazy situations with these people.  Underneath all of this is a feeling of tension because one girl is testing to go to a far-away college, while the other is perfectly happy at home.

What I Thought: This one was great.  It captured that time, 1999, as well as that situation, going away and leaving everything that was normal and comfortable, just perfectly.  The girls were great, and I kept thinking that I knew people that reminded me of them.   Even the random characters from around town seemed just so real.

And, like I’ve mentioned, when people write this truthfully about people that aren’t their gender, I’m blown away.  I just kept thinking “how does this guy know what it’s like to be a 18 year old girl?” Wild.

The Book: Good-bye, Chunky Rice, by Craig Thompson

The Story: The cutest little turtle  in the world is in love with the cutest little mouse in the world.  The book starts with them being lovey and cute and the mouse telling the turtle that he is bigger than this place and that she supports him leaving.  He says that he can’t imagine leaving without her and asks her to come with him.  She says she was made for this place.

He gets on a boat and leaves.

The rest of the book is these two coping with that loss.

What I Thought: This book was written by Craig Thompson, who I mentioned earlier.  This was his first book, and that is what made me get it.  Just wanted to see where he started.

Pretty impressive for a first graphic novel. The part that makes it really readable and lovable is just the rawness of the emotion.  If you’ve ever had to sacrifice something or someone to get to your future, you can understand that feeling of being so happy to be going but so heartbroken to be leaving this person.  That is just captured so well.

Also, the characters are adorable.

Overall Conclusion: First off, this really did break my reading rut.  Last night I picked up a book and didn’t immediately lose interest, so that’s a step in the right direction.

Second, I was really shocked that the 3 books I chose had these really similar themes.  They were all about leaving this person that you love and moving on to something bigger.  Strange.

Of all of these, I think that I enjoyed Good-bye Chunky Rice the most.  Followed closely by Ghost World.  Not that I didn’t like Shortcomings, but I just couldn’t really relate to it.

I think that these types of graphic novels are worth the read, for sure.  If you’ve always turned your nose up at “comic books” I think that you should give these a chance.  It’s incredible to me that not only can these people tell a great story, they can also draw it out.  These guys seriously have some talent.