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A review by jason_pym
Summer Blonde by Adrian Tomine
3.0
Tomine is such a great comic artist that the panels kind of disappear and the story plays out in your head, and his ear for dialogue is about perfect.
But in the twenty odd characters in the book, there is not one that is likeable. Everyone is slightly damaged, all are self-involved and oddly repellent. In the world of high school / early 20s, it becomes deeply claustrophobic. The comic craft is amazing, but I was glad to finish, I don't have any desire to go back to Tomine's world again.
It made me think of Charles Burn's Hole. Same teenage world, but there the claustrophobia is part of the supernatural horror, and you feel much more emotionally engaged with the more sympathetic (yet still damaged) characters.
But in the twenty odd characters in the book, there is not one that is likeable. Everyone is slightly damaged, all are self-involved and oddly repellent. In the world of high school / early 20s, it becomes deeply claustrophobic. The comic craft is amazing, but I was glad to finish, I don't have any desire to go back to Tomine's world again.
It made me think of Charles Burn's Hole. Same teenage world, but there the claustrophobia is part of the supernatural horror, and you feel much more emotionally engaged with the more sympathetic (yet still damaged) characters.