June Book List (part 2)

I'm telling you, comic books are a great way to beef up the old book list numbers...

Exit Wounds--Rutu Modan
A Tel Aviv taxi cab driver looks for his lost father--did he die in a terrorist bombing? Ok story, ok drawing.

Shortcomings--Adrian Tomine
A Japanese American jerk sort of coming to terms with his jerkiness. Good drawings, good story (at least until the very end).

Aya--Marguerite Abouet & Clément Oubrerie
A few months in the life of a teenage girl in a working-class neighborhood of Abidjan. The slice-of-life story was only moderately compelling but that might have been because I was very sleepy when I read it.

June Book List

Some seriously good comics (oh, excuse me, graphic novels):

Shenzhen: A Travelogue from China--Guy Delisle
Great drawings, humorous memoir of a brief period spent living and working in Shenzhen, by a French Canadian comic book/animation artist.

We Are on Our Own: A Memoir--Miriam Katin
The story of a very young girl and her mother escaping Nazis in Hungary at the very end of WWII. Another great use of the comic form to tell a serious story.

Cancer Vixen: A True Story--Marisa Acocella Marchetto
Very funny account of a NY fashonista's fight against breast cancer--great drawings, great use of color.