Book-It 'o11! Book #53
Nov. 13th, 2011 06:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alivemagdoleneThe Fifty Books Challenge, year three! (Years one and two, just in case you're curious.) This was a library request.
Title: How I Made It to Eighteen: A Mostly True Story by Tracy White
Details: Copyright 2010, Roaring Brook Press
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): " Hi,
This is the story of what happened to me when I had a nervous breakdown at seventeen.
All the names and some details have been changed, but the following facts are true (mostly):
1. I hated by life (you know, self-loathing, $h*tty boyfriend, bitch mom, etc.).
2. I had a breakdown (lost it, went crazy).
3. I admitted myself (checked into Golden Meadows Mental Hospital).
4. I detested it even thought I wanted to be happy (miserable, but still missed my crap life).
5. I realized I was in trouble (realized it like feel-it-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach realized it).
6. I finally really talked (as in, stopped lying).
7. I wrote and drew this book (the one you are holding in your hand)."
Why I Wanted to Read It: In my fevered search for more graphic novels from my local library, I stumbled across this book. I'm generally game for memoirs about fucked up girls and this seemed relatable.
How I Liked It: The book has got really two things going for it: authenticity (it is, after all, a sort-of memoir) and design concept (the author might not possess the most skill artistically, but she works with what she's got in a pleasing angle). The anger, anguish, and ambivalence of the main character struggling to understand her life as well as herself strike a very genuine tone, as does the interaction between characters. The stark line drawings paint a picture (so to speak) of the cold clinical feel of a mental health facility. The long form panels in which the main character stares down her therapist work brilliantly even if the illustrations themselves look overly preliminary. The flashbacks being tinted gray serve as an excellent narrative device.
Unfortunately, the book also has a lot working against it. A young woman's (rather plotless) teenage memoir through a mental health clinic has been told famously and skillfully through Girl Interrupted. A host of other accounts have followed, both memoir and fiction, and through various mediums, including graphic novel format. So the author has a steep hill to climb from the start. But a flooded market isn't her fault and it wouldn't prevent the book from being excellent.
No, why the book largely sinks is the fact the author's billed "mostly true story" isn't even put in enough of a context to incite the reader, the one who didn't live the author's actual true story. There's padding in the book that doesn't belong that no doubt feels essential to the author, but she never makes it feel essential to us. Most problematic is the recurring "poll" to the main character's various friends (four) including childhood friends as well as a friend made in the clinic. We're supposed to get a backstory both for the main character and these friends through a series of questions put to them which they answer in text within a panel with a picture of the character that changes from question to question. The questions themselves feel like an obvious narrative laziness ("Does Stacy get along well with guys?", "How does Stacy deal with her feelings? Do you think she has anger issues?") and I found myself sorely tempted to skip over them. We don't learn much about Stacy, really, from these questions, so much as we (sort of) learn about her friends.
We never really learn about Stacy's childhood, despite some stories from the friend who's known her since they were three and recounts Stacy's crying nightmares when sleeping over and being jealous of her having a "normal" family since Stacy's father was killed in a car accident and she has no siblings. These are facts, but they don't really give us how Stacy herself reacts to them. We meet Stacy's mother through both flashbacks and an appearance in family therapy (if the episode actually played out in the author's life and played out the way she describes, I sincerely wish she would've found a way to make it less cliched. Maybe make a joke about the fact the exchange was so rote and predictable?) but she's more of an interruption rather than a source of insight.
Finally, the storyline itself. Memoirs are things that (allegedly) happened and of course real life events seldom occur in a way that is easily frame-able. But it's the work of the author (particularly when the author is openly admitting to taking more liberties than usual) to frame them in a cohesive manner. We're given an abrupt portion of the main character's life that feels far more like a scribble than a passage. Most frustrating is perhaps the end. Given that this was clearly some time ago and that on the "about the author" flap, the author contrasts a current picture of herself with the caption "Me now. happy." with a teenage picture ("Me then. Not."), the story warrants an epilogue far better than the snippet we're given at the end ("In case you are wondering what happened...") written in the character's eighteen-year-old voice, a year hence from the main action.
The author, as I mentioned, had a steep burden in the fact we've been given so very many memoirs (and some of them wonderfully done) of youth mental illness, even female youth mental illness, and thus that it's so clear the ways the author could do better. I've seen many times this year books that would draw an unsuspecting reader into a better direction, either in terms of their thinking or in terms of literature. My hope is that this book serves as a primer (particularly given the still-prevalent meme that graphic novels = comics = stupid) for some confused (and possibly hurting) kid who will find his or her way to the better stuff through it.
Notable: The bio for one of the main character's friends includes the fact she's a Wiccan. I instantly tensed, expecting all sorts of new age fluffy-bunny nonsense (and that does sound like a tidbit that's "embellished" rather than factual), but fortunately, it's overshadowed by her other qualities (such as the fact she's known the main character since she was three), although there is one annoying passage wherein in response to the question "Did you realize Stacy was depressed?", said friend responses with a discussion of Stacy's aura and a recommendation to get her to try her "energy healer" who figured out the insomnia the friend suffered was due to "a portal in my room that dead souls were passing through."
Given that she's only seventeen, I guess it could be worse.
Title: How I Made It to Eighteen: A Mostly True Story by Tracy White
Details: Copyright 2010, Roaring Brook Press
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): " Hi,
This is the story of what happened to me when I had a nervous breakdown at seventeen.
All the names and some details have been changed, but the following facts are true (mostly):
1. I hated by life (you know, self-loathing, $h*tty boyfriend, bitch mom, etc.).
2. I had a breakdown (lost it, went crazy).
3. I admitted myself (checked into Golden Meadows Mental Hospital).
4. I detested it even thought I wanted to be happy (miserable, but still missed my crap life).
5. I realized I was in trouble (realized it like feel-it-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach realized it).
6. I finally really talked (as in, stopped lying).
7. I wrote and drew this book (the one you are holding in your hand)."
Why I Wanted to Read It: In my fevered search for more graphic novels from my local library, I stumbled across this book. I'm generally game for memoirs about fucked up girls and this seemed relatable.
How I Liked It: The book has got really two things going for it: authenticity (it is, after all, a sort-of memoir) and design concept (the author might not possess the most skill artistically, but she works with what she's got in a pleasing angle). The anger, anguish, and ambivalence of the main character struggling to understand her life as well as herself strike a very genuine tone, as does the interaction between characters. The stark line drawings paint a picture (so to speak) of the cold clinical feel of a mental health facility. The long form panels in which the main character stares down her therapist work brilliantly even if the illustrations themselves look overly preliminary. The flashbacks being tinted gray serve as an excellent narrative device.
Unfortunately, the book also has a lot working against it. A young woman's (rather plotless) teenage memoir through a mental health clinic has been told famously and skillfully through Girl Interrupted. A host of other accounts have followed, both memoir and fiction, and through various mediums, including graphic novel format. So the author has a steep hill to climb from the start. But a flooded market isn't her fault and it wouldn't prevent the book from being excellent.
No, why the book largely sinks is the fact the author's billed "mostly true story" isn't even put in enough of a context to incite the reader, the one who didn't live the author's actual true story. There's padding in the book that doesn't belong that no doubt feels essential to the author, but she never makes it feel essential to us. Most problematic is the recurring "poll" to the main character's various friends (four) including childhood friends as well as a friend made in the clinic. We're supposed to get a backstory both for the main character and these friends through a series of questions put to them which they answer in text within a panel with a picture of the character that changes from question to question. The questions themselves feel like an obvious narrative laziness ("Does Stacy get along well with guys?", "How does Stacy deal with her feelings? Do you think she has anger issues?") and I found myself sorely tempted to skip over them. We don't learn much about Stacy, really, from these questions, so much as we (sort of) learn about her friends.
We never really learn about Stacy's childhood, despite some stories from the friend who's known her since they were three and recounts Stacy's crying nightmares when sleeping over and being jealous of her having a "normal" family since Stacy's father was killed in a car accident and she has no siblings. These are facts, but they don't really give us how Stacy herself reacts to them. We meet Stacy's mother through both flashbacks and an appearance in family therapy (if the episode actually played out in the author's life and played out the way she describes, I sincerely wish she would've found a way to make it less cliched. Maybe make a joke about the fact the exchange was so rote and predictable?) but she's more of an interruption rather than a source of insight.
Finally, the storyline itself. Memoirs are things that (allegedly) happened and of course real life events seldom occur in a way that is easily frame-able. But it's the work of the author (particularly when the author is openly admitting to taking more liberties than usual) to frame them in a cohesive manner. We're given an abrupt portion of the main character's life that feels far more like a scribble than a passage. Most frustrating is perhaps the end. Given that this was clearly some time ago and that on the "about the author" flap, the author contrasts a current picture of herself with the caption "Me now. happy." with a teenage picture ("Me then. Not."), the story warrants an epilogue far better than the snippet we're given at the end ("In case you are wondering what happened...") written in the character's eighteen-year-old voice, a year hence from the main action.
The author, as I mentioned, had a steep burden in the fact we've been given so very many memoirs (and some of them wonderfully done) of youth mental illness, even female youth mental illness, and thus that it's so clear the ways the author could do better. I've seen many times this year books that would draw an unsuspecting reader into a better direction, either in terms of their thinking or in terms of literature. My hope is that this book serves as a primer (particularly given the still-prevalent meme that graphic novels = comics = stupid) for some confused (and possibly hurting) kid who will find his or her way to the better stuff through it.
Notable: The bio for one of the main character's friends includes the fact she's a Wiccan. I instantly tensed, expecting all sorts of new age fluffy-bunny nonsense (and that does sound like a tidbit that's "embellished" rather than factual), but fortunately, it's overshadowed by her other qualities (such as the fact she's known the main character since she was three), although there is one annoying passage wherein in response to the question "Did you realize Stacy was depressed?", said friend responses with a discussion of Stacy's aura and a recommendation to get her to try her "energy healer" who figured out the insomnia the friend suffered was due to "a portal in my room that dead souls were passing through."
Given that she's only seventeen, I guess it could be worse.
