Green River Killer by Jonathan Case and Jeff Jensen

Early last month, there was a new graphic nonfiction book getting a lot of buzz. It's very rare that I see non-comic graphic books getting some much needed hype, so I was quite thrilled to see Green River Killer featured. But I wasn't very sure about the subject itself. I prefer reading non-graphic nonfiction about true crime, I wasn't sure how the graphic medium was going to handle that. How sensitive would it be? Words in reference to psychopaths can make me queasy, but pictures, even more so. Sometimes, it helps to be judgmental when you read - seeing the picture of a tragedy breaks open some vulnerable part in you, and can affect your perception of an incident. With pictures, there's usually only one side that's presented. Even in writing, it's hard to present two sides justly. Not that there's anything just or right about killing - but to understand why a killing happened, I find it necessary to understand the killer himself. But I needn't have worried much - this book was less about the killer and more about the detective who took charge of the investigation. And in that respect, I think the writers/illustrators did a genuinely wonderful job in bringing forth a lot of emotions and issues related to the case.

Green River Killer is, as the title says, about the Green River Killer, the serial killer who raped and murdered a possible 90+ women, many of them prostitutes. Most of the murders occurred between 1982 and 1984, and the bodies were disposed off in the Green River area in Seattle, hence the name. The killer, Gary Ridgway was arrested twice on charges of prostitution, but no one had any concrete proof to link him to the killings. When, finally, DNA technology made it possible to conduct more reliable tests, Ridgway was formally arrested and charged with seven murders. However, Ridgway came forward with a plea bargain - he will lead the detectives to the bodies of as many of his victims as possible. Rather than give him the death penalty for seven solved murders and leaving the remaining dozens of mysteries go unresolved and the victims' families without closure, the State Prosecution decided to spare him the axe and get as many answers as they could. Green River Killer is the story of that investigation, particularly from the viewpoint of detective Tom Jensen, as told to his son Jeff.

The book slips back and forth in time, almost unobtrusively - in the present, the detectives are interviewing Ridgway, who isn't exactly having any significant detail or evidence to share. The images set in the past almost always follow the fruitless investigation and the immense effect it has on Tom Jensen. Following a true detective "story" on graphic media was an interesting experience. Some of the guys had been working on the case for years. Jensen had been on it right from the start and following the progress on the case was like cheering on an embattled fighter in a ring, or the valiant underdog team in a high-stakes game. You just wanted him to nail the guy, and go home to enjoy his retirement. But it wasn't easy. What he expected to take "no time" at all, took almost twenty years. During that time, the years catch up on Tom Jensen, though he remains as charismatic as ever and still smoking many cigarettes a day, after having promised to give it up when the case is finally solved. In all these years, he remained the primary investigator in the Green River killer case, which pretty much overtook every aspect of his life.

(Picture source)

This book is as much about the detective process as it is not about the killer himself. And that's where I was slightly disappointed. Ridgway was shown as mostly the killer he is with not much remorse or back story. What we hear about him is what's mostly in the public domain already - his troubled childhood, his compulsion to conquer in sex and death, his fascination with committing necrophilia and difficulty to resist it. Although I hoped for a little more insight into this man, this wasn't the book for it, as the writers also made it clear. Still, that's not to say that Ridgway was portrayed as one-dimensional. There are times you can actually see some feeling in him, while you're trying not to feel that sensation of your skin crawling when you look at his pictures. I hated it when he tried to justify his killing habits by saying that he was doing a good thing for the country by ridding it of prostitutes. On the other hand, he loved his wife (his third), and even liked one of the women he killed. When he was trying to provide evidence to the detectives, it was hard to not feel sorry for him while he tried to recollect his memory. The detectives kept accusing him of how they would never forget it if they did something of this magnitude. My guess was more that raping and killing was such a routine exercise for him that it wasn't hard for him to forget the details.

Green River Killer was very thought-provoking and well-done. It had the right amount of mystery, intrigue, and humanity added to the illustrations. The black and white sketches also gave the book a dark gothic tone, well in sync with the tone of the story itself. This is yet another fabulous graphic book that I will strongly recommend to you guys. It's far less disturbing than it might be reading about the killer, and the crime itself is never exploited in graphics - giving it just the amount of truth and sense of tragedy as is necessary, but the people's emotions and reactions lend the tragedy the rest of the weight.

I received this book for free for review from the publisher, Top Shelf Productions via NetGalley. Green River Killer was published on October 11, 2011.

Gingerbread Girl by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover

This is the most eccentric book I've ever read. I actually gave up on it halfway through, because it was stretching my imagination way too far, but then I checked out some reviews that this book received, and they've all been very strong and positive. So, then I suspended my disbelief real well and got back to reading it. Besides, being a graphic novel, it was easier to decide whether to continue with it or not. Once I was done with it, I wasn't in love with it, but I could see the point of the author and why it was well-received.

Twenty-six year old Annah Billips has all the normal tastes in things - she likes sushi, hates beer breath, and loves to travel. She likes to date both boys and girls and has been dating a girl, Chili, and a guy, Jerry, because she still has not decided on her sexual orientation. She believes that she has a sister. Now the eccentric part - the sister was created from a part of her brain. Weird, huh? So, there's a part of your brain (the homunculus) that is in sync with every part of your body, such as what your hand is touching, where your legs are. It's also the part that feels pain, desire, etc. Annah claims that her mad scientist father extracted that part of her brain and created this whole new person, who is the titular gingerbread girl of this book. You know, gingerbread man, the way she visualizes her sister's creation reminded her of the gingerbread man.

The whole book then follows a myriad characters, such as a magician, a pigeon, a thief, a store clerk, a bulldog and even Chili and Jerry, who all narrate what they know about Annah. They don't really believe her tale but they don't dismiss it either, because they have seen some proof of the sister's existence. They explain why although the idea of a person created from someone's brain feels weird, they cannot say for sure that there is no sister. There are times when they have seen someone who appeared to be Annah but eventually didn't "seem to be" Annah. Gingerbread Girl doesn't try to make you believe either theory but rather questions your beliefs. At the core, it asks us what we really know about a person.

Annah's childhood was anything but fun. Some harrowing experiences shaped her outlook during her younger years and they are revealed in flashes. And although she appears jovial and full of life now, there are times when certain things trigger strange emotions or reactions in her. I was disappointed about not getting any closure in the end, but when I thought about it, I could see why it was supposed to end that way. Once the reader chooses to either believe or not believe Annah's story of her sister, the rest of the story falls in place easily. I would imagine none of us would buy the idea of a person being created from a brain, unless we were reading fantasy, and that's what makes some of the last few pages very harrowing to read. The more I learned about Annah, the more I was left feeling sad for what happened to her, and that shaped how my opinion of her kept changing.

The graphics in the book reminded me of the Archie comics. The drawings are light and fun and they seem to fit the vivacious nature of Annah. In the end, although I enjoyed reading this book (after I decided to give it a second chance), I wouldn't count it as a top read. Some of the interrupted narration, as other characters popped in to give their version of the story, disturbed the flow for me. It was certainly thought-provoking and mostly I was glad how eccentric a book can be and still leave you wondering about a lot of things. 

I received this book for free for review from the publisher, Top Shelf Productions via NetGalley. Gingerbread Girl made its debut on July 12, 2011.

Lucille by Ludovic Debeurme

I've been reading quite a lot of graphic novels lately. Some are from NetGalley, others from the library. I will be doing a few posts on the graphic novels over the next few weeks - I'm still deciding how I want to do them. I don't have a whole lot to say about some of the books, so I may do either mini-reviews or combined posts. But there is this one book - Lucille by Ludovic Debeurme - that I have a lot to talk about, and so I'm kicking off the graphic novel review spree with this.

Teenager Lucille is having identity issues. The book starts off with her addressing her sexual needs and looking at her thin stalk-like body in vain. The boy she is interested in has jumped out of her research team to work with a girl he likes. She is worried that no one will like her, and her mother isn't too helpful when Lucille asks her about it, saying that Lucille's looks doesn't matter since she has brains. Lucille's identity issues soon escalate sending her into a spiraling abyss of anorexia. However, even after she is discharged from hospital care, she is still obsessed with losing weight, and is too weak to even move much.

(Picture source)

Lucille, the book, introduces another character - Arthur, who I feel is the more important character of the book. Arthur has extreme OCD; he keeps counting - counting steps, counting slabs, counting just about anything. His father has severe alcoholism and rage problems, which often result in bar fights. After one such bar fight in Arthur's presence makes Arthur disfigure the face of an influential man, his father finds difficulties finding a new job, having just been laid off his previous one. Arthur also inherits his father's temper. Both kids - Arthur and Lucille - have issues, stemming from certain lonesome experiences as kids. As teenagers, they both struggle to fit into society and develop anorexia/OCD as a means to combat with their loneliness and low self-esteem issues.

Lucille and Arthur eventually meet up, and the story afterwards is as rich as the one before. Two people with issues don't always complement each other. Their destructive traits can bring the other person down. I was impressed with how the author played their dynamic relationship. This is a love story and yet not one either. It's about two misfits who find each other and relate with each other's weaknesses. They find comfort in the fact that they can be themselves with each other and not pretend to be someone else. And yet with that acceptance of each other, they also dawdle in their own obsessions and find it hard to overcome them. I found this a very moving story and it is a testimony to Ludovic's brilliant graphics that I found my emotions spanning a whole gamut as I followed the characters' lives. If I had one issue with this book, it was how their first meeting was handled. I thought it appeared a bit cheesy and unbelievable.

(Picture source)

Ludovic uses very clean drawing that removes away any clutter in the picture. There's only the necessary amount of detail in it - nothing more, nothing less. And that allows the reader to feel the loneliness of the characters and their anguish in certain circumstances. Most of the focus is on the characters of the book. Their expressions, even when stripped of all emotions, tell a lot. Lucille is not told in a linear fashion, and we learn some things early and some later. This works well for the story because the author doesn't waste time and pages in dragging out a moment but the aftermath of the moments can still be felt. In addition to letting his pictures capture the raw emotions of the characters, he also uses dreams and internal dialogues to exhibit their restless minds. Both Lucille and Arthur dream of flying away from their problems.

This book deals with anorexia, alcoholism, dysfunctional relationships and OCD in a very delicate manner. Although that's a lot of issues, it doesn't feel like too much, because the graphic medium easily laps it up. Those who loved Blankets by Craig Thompson and Stitches by David Small will enjoy this one. Lucille shares the very expressive anguish of Blankets and the uncluttered, simple and articulate drawings of Stitches. The French original of Lucille has already won a lot of awards. At 545 pages, this is a huge book, but I finished it in an hour and a half. And it's just part one, so it ends with a lot of questions. The part two, Renée, has already been published in French, and will be published in English next year. The publisher, Top Shelf Productions, is soon becoming a favorite of mine. They had published Blankets, which I absolutely loved, and also Essex County, which I can't wait to read. And I just finished another new one by them which I enjoyed.

I received this book for free for review from the publisher, Top Shelf Productions via NetGalley. Lucille was originally published in French in 2006. It's English translation made its debut on July 12, 2011.

Vietnamerica by GB Tran

(I've been writing this review for three nights and never quite getting it right, so I'm just going to go ahead with what I've written so far.) This year, I seem to have read a lot of books about characters (real or fictional) who try to get to know their roots better. Some go to their native country or the country their ancestors are from. Others reconnect with their families. I don't know if I'm semi-consciously levitating towards such books or if it's all chance. This is the second time that I'm reading a book on such a theme via the graphic medium (the first was Maus). I was curious about how this would turn out. On one hand, this is a great medium for demonstrating the feelings and emotions of the characters. On the other hand, getting to know your roots mean a lot of introspection - not always well-displayed through pictures. Some amount of dialogue would be needed and the artist's talent determines how well he can convey that without getting too wordy.

Vietnamerica by GB Tran is an account of the author's trip to Vietnam with his parents and his discovery of his family's rich ancestral history, of which he knew nothing about, nor professed any interest in earlier. He had a vague idea that his parents had fled Saigon in the 70s, but they never talked about it. It is years later, when the author's two living grandparents die within a few months of each other, that they make the trip to Vietnam - to pay respects and to connect with their history.

(Picture source)

There is a lot that goes on in this book. GB Tran paints a history that goes back to three generations in his family. His father's reticence and his mother's commitment to a fractious marriage are the main two issues resolved, but both are consequences of actions much older than them. We don't quite get there until the end, but the evidence is seen very early. Rather than provide a chronological approach, GB Tran links specific events or chapters by context, thereby letting the reader draw the connection between the characters. Occasionally he slips between the present and the past, thereby forging a connection between an antique object or a specific characteristic, to something in the past. I found this stress on context really worked well, because as readers, we may not remember pictures as easily as specific incidents described in words. The downside to this was that I had trouble keeping the timeline straight. Since events are linked by context more than time, the timeline wasn't always clear to me. And that's where the disjointed jumping around lost me.

At 320+ large and very colorful pages, this book is huge! There are a lot of characters, and at times, I did get them mixed up - I didn't have trouble with names, but occasionally I forgot who a specific character was, or which set of grandparents the author was talking about. Still, after a while, I did get them all straight and adapted well to the flow of the book. It's especially painful thinking how much the effect of something that happened a generation or two ago can still be felt so acutely. There's the grandfather who was pretty much absent from his son's life, but then that son grows up to be a distant and taciturn father.

Overall, I thought this was a pretty decent attempt at the exploration of one's past in graphic media. I don't think it worked as well as it could have. GB Tran's artwork is certainly very beautiful. There are vivid splashes of color across the pages. The author however doesn't appear to be actively interested in all the history - he seems to be a disinterested spectator at best. Eventually, when he does make the jump, I found it hard to believe. Still, the history of Vietnam made for rich reading. It's always nice to read about it from the local perspective.

I borrowed this book from my library.

Fist Stick Knife Gun by Geoffrey Canada

Fist Stick Knife Gun is yet another book on gang violence. I've been lately reading/watching stuff on this topic. It is totally unplanned, mostly coincidental, but I can't help but notice its recurrence. First it was Yummy by G. Neri and then this book. Now, just last night, I watched the movie - Freedom Writers (which by the way is awesome, so it will get its own post).

Fist Stick Knife Gun was illustrated by Jamar Nicholas, based on Geoffrey Canada's memoir by the same title. This is the first time I'm reading a graphic version of a book and I'm kind of mixed about how I feel. Since this is the only so-so aspect I have to say, I want to get that out of the way. I haven't read the original book so I don't have a reference, but I felt the graphic book was too verbose, almost like any regular book. It had the total feel of a graphic novel, but there was a lot of background narration, so it felt wordy to me.

This memoir follows Geoffrey Canada's life in one of the many gang-operated New York streets, and the lifestyle he led in such a climate. It takes a look at the kids who grow up in lawless streets and are forever defined by the crimes that happen around them and the survival tactics they learn there. While reading this book, many times I wondered why the color of the skin is usually enough for many as evidence of crime. And why when such people of color ask for police help, their complaints are treated as trivial.

When the book begins, Geoffrey is a four-year old staying with three other brothers and their mother. Their father wasn't much of a father and walked out of their lives early on. Geoffrey's mother is a strong woman. She never let her kids take any kind of crap from others. Once when someone stole a jacket belonging to one of Geoffrey's brothers, she threatened that he go back and get it. (I did think that was too intimidating and almost like sending a kid to slaughter, but to survive the kind of life the kids were inevitably going to lead, they needed to learn to stand up for themselves.) This ultimatum absolutely terrified the boys but they managed to get the jacket back somehow.

The real test for the kids begins when they all move to a different street. This street has a total different gameplay and power structure. Before anyone is considered a part of the street, he has to fight someone else so that they know their place in the street hierarchy. If they don't fight or do not show any kind of "stand up for themselves" characteristic, they get beaten up. As Geoffrey explains, the town's kids are actually being prepared for the crueler and harsher environments they will face in school and later on, in other streets.

I liked this book better than I expected to. The artwork shows the whole dynamics of street life better than what I gleaned off from any other book. The boys may be tough, violent and unreasonable sometimes, but I didn't, couldn't, look at them as just plain gangs. In fact, although this book provides a really good look at gang life, that phrase never really crossed my mind as I was reading it.

It really is amazing how much such a kid has to go through to survive. Darwin's Survival of the Fittest springs to mind immediately. There's no money in many of the homes there. No police protection, no education or welfare programs - in fact, no one cares about the people there. This could have been some isolated part of the world for all you know. And yet these kids devise their own mechanisms to survive - their own power structure and leaders, their own rules and punishments - in fact, each street is like its own separate country governed primarily by fist-fights, sticks, knives and guns, in that order. 

I borrowed this book from the library.

Stitches by David Small

Stitches is a graphical memoir by David Small, spanning mainly his childhood and teen years. Rather than a full-blown memoir, this book especially focuses on his relationship with his parents and the consequences of many of their actions. David's mother was extremely moody. Her moods could last days or weeks and no one really knew what was bothering her and she never bothered to talk about it either. David's father was a doctor. When David was born with sinus and digestive problems, his father himself prescribed medicines, gave him shots, cranked his neck and took tons of X-rays. This was a very dysfunctional family.

Being a huge book in size, I assumed it would take me a while to get through it. On the contrary, it was a breezy read, but no less intense for that. I love it that this is a book of little words and more pictures. There are dialogues but they are used only where necessary. David Small lets his pictures do the talking and they certainly do it well!

David's mom was obsessed with saving money, so much so that when there are the beginnings of a lump on David's neck, she doesn't rush to get him treatment. Instead she chides him about it insisting that they don't have the money for it. She gets him a preliminary diagnosis, and even when his dad is suddenly the recepient of a huge amount of money, both his parents hurry off to do some shopping. There's no way I can explain that sudden feeling of sadness I got when I saw that even when they do have the means, it is spent on trivial pursuits and not on the health of their son.

David's anger at his parents is well-justified. But in the afterword, he mentions that there's a lot more he learned about his mother since her death. I still wouldn't get her off the hook, but I'm sure many of her actions could be understood better for reasons David does not reveal. As for his father, you get the feeling that he is just a presence in David's life. He doesn't know much about what's happening with him, most of what he knows are through his mother.

There are patches in this book when I didn't get quite as invested in David's story. Sometimes, I wasn't sure where the story was heading, since the cliffhanger comes well after two-thirds of the book. However, I'm sure my opinion will change after I reread this book, which I hope to do soon. There are many dimensions to this book, and to fully appreciate it, a reread is certainly in order. I would however be lying if I said that I wasn't moved. It was a very poignant read and bristling with righteous anger. For a long time, David kept quiet. He didn't fight or argue with his parents, but you could always sense the inevitable boiling point. But what brings about that eventuality is something very shocking - something David had to find out the really hard way.

I borrowed this book from the library.

Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty by G. Neri

I first came across this title at Helen's blog. I had never heard of this book before, nor the incident narrated in it. Moreover, the title of the book - Yummy - sounded too weird, too out-of-place to me. I could tell from the cover that this book had no relation to food, whatever the title. Yummy is the nickname of the protagonist of this book, Robert Sandifer, because he loved sweets.

This graphic novel was written by G. Neri and illustrated by Randy DuBurke. I thought the narration and the illustration effectively communicated the guns and gangs problem in the shady law-crippled areas. The setting is in Chicago actually, but it could have been any other place - don't we regularly hear about gang crimes in LA, NY, and many countries around the world?

Yummy is just 11. He has already been recruited into a gang. He wants to impress the older members of his gang by displaying toughness and proving that he can do any kind of work. The US law couldn't convict kids - they could go to juvenile prison and walk out free once they turned 21. (I don't know what the law is now, but that's what it was during Yummy's days). I still think wasting your youth in jail is a far more tragic punishment than being in jail forever, but the gang members used that law to their advantage by recruiting younger kids to do their dirty work, knowing that they wouldn't be arrested forever.

Yummy is really short, hence called a shortie by many of his "friends" and gang members. A tough shortie, because he could get really nasty and tough if he wanted to. He didn't like being taken advantage of, and if possible, he would get his revenge too. Being obsessed about getting higher up in the gang hierarchy (as he was promised as bait to commit crimes), Yummy was out on a mission, when he aims wrong and shoots the wrong person - a girl named Shavon Dean, who just happened to be in the wrong place at that time. When you stop to think about it, it's really tragic, not even filmy-tragic. A girl who has no connection to gangs, who just wants to work in a beauty parlor someday because she could style hair really well, is killed. A boy, whose voice has probably not even broken yet, and didn't even train to aim properly is a murderer. He comes from a fractured family, so there's no one really to help him. And now the gang members would be mad because of the law officials who'll be coming to investigate.

What I loved about this book is how Yummy is portrayed. Coming from a troubled home, his confusion is very obvious. His parents are in prison, and he was left in the care of his granny, who was also looking after (if that could be said) a whole other bunch of grandkids, sometimes up to 20. Yummy could disappear for days from her house, and she wouldn't notice. When he wants to appear tough, you could see it clearly in the drawings. In fact, his expressions could even scare you if you were looking at him closely. And at other times, he would be the 11-year old kid that he actually is, who loves the usual boy stuff and yearns to be loved and accepted.

This book was a really fast read, but it left me thinking for a long time. This is one of those cases where you never know who is to blame. Far from being dangerous, the fact that a kid can easily walk around with a gun is simply tragic, mindblowing and unbelievable. I've always been against liberal gun laws, and I can't imagine changing my viewpoint, whatever anyone tells me about most buyers being responsible, and just intending to use it for hunting or for safety. But of course, if someone wants a gun, they will get it, however tight the laws are.

I borrowed this book from the library.

Anne Frank by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón

Anne Frank is no stranger to us. We all know about how she hid with her family and four others in a secret annex in Netherlands during the infamous Holocaust, for two years. Whether or not we have actually read or loved her diary, none of us would deny that she went through a harrowing experience - just as million other Jews, victimized simply because of their faith. But in so many ways, Anne has become a symbol of that period chiefly because she was just fifteen when she died (murdered is what I like to say, even if it was disease that eventually claimed her), and also because she recorded her stay in the annex in her diary, which has already been read by millions.

That said, when I first read and loved Anne Frank's Diary two years back, the most common sentiment I heard expressed among those who didn't rate it highly was that the book felt too "immature". In other words, it read like any fifteen year old's diary - with all the typical squabbles, complaints, teenage infatuations/crushes/desires and worldly wisdoms. It seemed anticlimactic or too flat considering all the hype around it. I know many who tried to read it as any diary and eventually gave up. Most people loved it though, and what particularly struck me about the diary was that it was the manifestation of the dreams and desires of a girl (like any other girl), who never got to experience them, because of a man-made tragedy.

From that perspective, this graphic nonfiction is a really excellent accompaniment to the diary. Many have attested that when reading Anne's diary, it is really crucial to be in Anne's position - trapped for two years in an annex with just a single bathroom and not much privacy; a young girl at the cusp of those years when she is discovering herself, every single day - the age at which any girl or boy wants to experiment with a lot of things, including love and all the desires it invokes. Add another family to that annex, a family you now had to live with for two years, or rather for an unknown amount of time.

In Anne's diary, the events following their capture are chronicled in the Afterword section of the edition I read - who died and how, who survived. This book actually shows the events. Pictures can have a more powerful effect on the reader, and it did so in this case. Did you know that Anne and her sister died just weeks before rescue arrived at their camp? If she had been rescued, her diary might never have seen the light of day. But at least the world would not have missed having such a remarkable woman in its midst.

I felt that this book was really well-done. I read in an interview (whose link I can't find now) that the drawings of the characters, their attires and even the layouts of the annex strongly resemble the original characters and their hideout. Towards the end of the book when everyone is captured, they all look so different from their original selves - malnutrition, disease and fatigue eating out their muscle and body mass quickly. That's something I can never get used to - all those horrific images of the camps and their inmates. How could humans be so callous? I knew before I started, thanks to Ash, that this book is not a duplicate of Anne's diary. Instead, it covers a significant period before and after Anne starts writing her diary. That's really helpful because it puts Anne's diary in context much better than the diary itself does. Suddenly, the events seem much more harrowing, more scary, vivid and dangerous than how Anne says it. And after reading this graphic book, when I recollect some of the entries from Anne's diary, I see them in a much different light.

I borrowed this book from the library.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney

In December, when I was browsing through the books section in Costco, I saw the Diary of a Wimpy Kid #5: The Ugly Truth lying on the front shelf. There's not a single bookstore where this book isn't propped right on your nose, literally. A week before, when I was browsing through Toys R Us for some games for my nieces, I came across an entire row half full of books from this series. By the time I saw this book at Costco, I was itching to know once and for all what the whole deal over this book is. So then I opened it right over there, blocking the way for any unlucky person standing behind me, and started reading. Just half a second into it, and I started snorting with laughter. Now that was embarrassing, but my cheeks were inflaming with uncontrolled giggles. So instead of putting it back on the shelf, I discreetly put it into my cart, started whistling some nonsensical tune as I made my way to the-fish-market-crowded checkout lane. And that's how I came into possession of a book so different from the kind that ever graces my bookshelves.

I started with the fifth book - it really doesn't matter which book you start with - but I would recommend reading in order for the order-obsessed reader. This whole series is from the first person viewpoint of Greg Heffley, a middle-grader with an obnoxiously high opinion of self. In fact, it's an attitude you wouldn't appreciate in anyone but yourself, which is why you end up loving Greg. His elder brother, Rodrick, never misses an opportunity to embarrass Greg or tattle him to his parents. Rodrick also has his own band, Loded Diper (supposed to be loaded diaper, but Rodrick sucks in spelling). Greg's younger brother, Manny, is another devilish little kid, who always gets his way, and unwittingly does things that embarrasses Greg. For instance, Manny addresses Greg as Bubba, in public.

Each book in the series follows Greg at school, during vacation, with different plots, but always filled with the same brand of mischief and laugh-worthy thoughts by Greg. Greg started writing a diary because when he grows up and becomes famous, he wouldn't have to keep answering the same questions asked by the media. He'd rather give them copies of his diary. Greg's best friend, Rowley, mostly sticks by Greg, except when he really senses that Greg is not giving him due credit or getting him to do the dirty part. The best part is Greg himself doesn't see it as manipulation. Rather, he is always convinced that he is doing Rowley a favor. Rowley loves wearing superhero costumes, and embarrasses Greg once when he asks him in front of the older kids, whether he wants to come home and "play". Greg prefers the phrase "hang out" to "play".

I enjoyed reading this series so much, and laughed through most of it. I loved Greg, even in spite of his outrageous schemes, and cunning ideas. At one point, he tries really hard to impress a girl, but particularly embarrassing stuff choose to happen at that time. He also comes up with plenty ways to make more money - you will have to admit that this kid has ideas! Overall, this was one really delightful series, for all ages alike.

I (un)abashedly went to the kids section in my library and borrowed this series.

Review: Blankets by Craig Thompson

Ever read a memoir in graphic format? I grew up equating anything with pictures = comics. And I just recently read my first memoir graphic "novel" (something I never believed possible). In fact, I never knew this was a memoir until after reading it. Or maybe I realized it at some point while I was reading, when I noticed that the protagonist was named Craig Thompson - same as the author's name. In all the reviews I've read so far, somehow I never caught that fact.

Blankets is the story of Craig's childhood, teen and early adulthood years. It is so poignant and beautiful, that it's really hard to express it verbally. In fact, I read this book a couple of months ago, but never reviewed it till now, because for the first time, I was at a loss for words. How can pictures capture so much emotion?

Craig didn't have an easy childhood. As with any pair of siblings, there was a lot of rivalry between Craig and his brother. But there was a lot of love and playfulness too. At school, Craig got bullied a lot and once home, he would try to act the boss when he was with his brother, even though he was often racked with guilt at his own actions. How Craig confessed this in the book is really wonderful - flitting between the past and the present. It is very hard for this to work well in pictures, because the author has to make sure that the reader understands that this is a flashback, without being explicit about it. In fact, although the whole story is told chronologically, there are several flashback elements that tie an event to an earlier circumstance.

Craig was always a misfit. This is what caused him to be bullied a lot. In addition, a particularly traumatic episode in his childhood forever affected him. These events led him to be very religious, because he could not understand why he was being bullied. Eventually, he began to feel aimless, and turned to drawing and dreaming to escape reality. Craig's struggles tore at me. He powerfully illustrates how his beliefs flitted from one to the other, how some circumstances influence you so much that you start building different hypotheses to explain them. It was clear that Craig had a lot of regrets. The impressive part was how well I could see that through his drawings.

Over time, he became good at identifying other misfits, and that's how he met Raina, his first love. Even in spite of all the bullying that he regularly endured, Craig always remained himself. He didn't try to impress others or pretend to be someone else, and that was such a powerful message coming from the pages, in this age, where first impressions are so important. Right from the start, you start rooting for the couple. Both Raina and Craig are shy by nature, so it was wonderful seeing the two bond together. While earlier, he was never encouraged much to draw, through his relationship with Raina, he began drawing more.

Through the book, we also see how his faith changes over time. From being blindly devout, to slowly beginning to question beliefs to overtly rejecting certain aspects of it. I've never tracked the progress of my faith with my real-life events, but that's how your faith changes. Seeing how Craig mapped them well made me curious to know how things had been in my life - how the cause and effect circle of life worked.

There are so many moments in Blankets, when you probably will go thinking that this happened to me, or that you totally understand how something feels. There is just so much feeling and emotion in the pages, and it's not even a short graphic book. I think I picked this book to read sometime during my very busy months for a break - instead I got a total book's worth and I didn't even come out of my room for dinner until I finished it. I'm glad I left it so long before reviewing, because I noticed that I am still as WOWed by it as when I finished it. This is one of those books that you really have to read before understanding why everyone is raving about it - even I wondered what the whole hoopla was about.

  

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I borrowed this book from the library.

Review: Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli

Title: Asterios Polyp
Author: David Mazzucchelli
Source: Library | This book won the LA Times Book Prize for Graphic Novels
344 pages



In a nutshell
Asterios Polyp is a middle-aged, meagerly successful architect and teacher, aesthete and womanizer. One night when his New York apartment goes up in flames, his whole life goes topsy-turvy, and he relocates to a small town. But how did he get there? Alternating between the present and the past, we see snippets of how his life was. We meet Hana, a first-generation Japanese American artist, with whom he had a blissful life. But now she's not there. What happened to them?

I think...
I quite liked the way this story is told. The splash of colors used made things very lively and sharp. Even for a graphic novel, it has some really memorable characters and deeply evocative character sketches. David Mazzucchelli has done a good job in developing some vivid characters. When the book starts, Asterios is portrayed as an arrogant teacher who thinks high of himself and spends much of his time teaching. When his apartment goes up in flames, he runs away from the life he knows and moves into a small town to work as a mechanic, although he doesn't know the first thing about repairing cars.

Alternating "chapters" recount his past and show how he is faring in the present. Through his past, we learn that he had once been in love with Hana, a shy but very talented artist, who stayed away from spotlights, to the extent of rejecting offers. I loved Hana! Asterios and Hana had a dynamic relationship. His ego caused him to often be sarcastically funny, while Hana always knew how to bring him down and handle him.

But Asterios is one of those characters I can never stand. The kinds that pretend to know everything, and usually have an opinion on anything and everything. At the messy home of a music composer, Asterios bosses around, not giving the composer much credit. I felt terribly sorry for the composer when every passionate statement of his was met with an aloof conjecture from Asterios.

When Asterios moves to a small town, he stays with Stiff, a mechanic whose wife Ursula is one hilarious character. She arranges his room in an auspicious layout, after inquiring his birth-date. When she finally shows him to his room, it looks really weird in a non-functional way.

Asterios Polyp has a well-illustrated storyline. The illustrations are well done, plus the emotions conveyed are strongly felt. Although I would recommend this book for its novel-format story-telling (similar to what I found in Chicken with Plums), I found it too preachy at times. There are whole "chapters" that I couldn't enjoy much, and I blame that mainly on my low perception of graphics. I'm sure someone who enjoys deciphering images and relating them to the main story and the hidden messages, would find this book wonderful. Moreover, most of the references to philosophy and philosophers were quite lost on me. This book has been touted to be the best among graphic novels in 2009, in plenty of lists, so I do feel that that I didn't grasp this book as much as I would like. I appreciated the vivid persona of Asterios Polyp, and how his beliefs shaped his character, but the frequent philosophical undertones just didn't capture my interest.

What did you think?
Have you read this book? I'd like to know what you thought about it. Please leave your review link in the comments, or a brief opinion, if you hadn't reviewed it.

Did you like it or you didn't? If you didn't, at what point did the book turn you off.