The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl

The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl by Barry Lyga

Fanboy is your standard geek.  He’s in to computers and comics.  He’s constantly bullied at school and has no where to turn.  His mother is pregnant and his stepfather is just another bully.  His only refuge is the comic book he’s creating in the middle of the night, and his only dream is to meet Brian Michael Bendis, who will surely help Fanboy get his book published.  Then he meets your standard goth girl Kyra, and they become friends based on their shared hatred of the same bullies.

Barry Lyga’s book has a great blend of humor and drama.  Most of the humor is very sarcastic.  Fanboy makes hysterical comments about high school society in his very dry, sardonic voice.  There are also lots of in-jokes about the world of comics.  If the reader doesn’t know comics well, most of these jokes may be lost.  This use of humor based on the world of comics would make me recommend this to a person who has read a lot of comics but doesn’t read a lot of traditional novels.  Fanboy’s cynical voice and wry observations of high school and the world of comics makes for an enjoyable book.

The book is also, at times, very dark and depressing.  There is a constant threat of violence throughout the book.  Fanboy has a List, a running tally of all those who have ever tormented him.  These are not petty bullying episodes, they are violent incidents that are completely unjustified.  Fanboy is quiet, keeps to himself, is viewed as weak, and is therefore a target.  It is at times difficult to read and you question why he just won’t stand up for himself.  In addition to the List, he carries a bullet with him at all times, reaching for it almost like a religious icon when he is being bullied.  Kyra is far more vocal about her violent tendencies, and one of the central stories of the book is learning why she is so angry.

I particularly enjoyed the fact that the two title characters are not romantically involved.  They have great banter, constantly bickering with each other but developing a great friendship.  So many books of this sort show the weak hero all of a sudden coming into his own and finding the love of his life.  Fanboy definitely begins to stand up for himself, but he isn’t shown getting a relationship.  Not every milestone has to happen before the age of 18.

I felt this book was very relatable without being too preachy, and I never felt that this was an adult writing.  This is pretty much a pitch-perfect angsty teenager who is being pushed to the edge by bullies.  I especially liked the book because not everything was resolved at the end.  Fanboy is slightly more assertive, but you see that he is still a work in progress.  His relationship with his mother and stepfather seem to get better, but it’s still not perfect.  I highly enjoyed this book, because this was me in high school.  Cynical, angry at the world, feeling like there is no place to turn, and learning that there are people out there ready to listen if you are willing to open up.  I would recommend this to everyone, and I’m going to close this by saying I’m glad high school is over for me.

What the Dead Know

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman

This is a great mystery novel. The story takes place in the present and the past. In the present a mysterious woman gets into a traffic accident that requires a hospital stay and questions by police. She refuses to reveal her identity, and claims that she is one of two sisters that went missing decades previously. The parts of the novel that occur in the past are not flashbacks but rather they follow the sisters the day they went missing. The tension between the two accounts create a complicated yarn where the facts of both storylines becomes fuzzy and uncertain. What really happened to the sisters long ago? And does the woman claiming to be one of them returned telling the truth? Or is she just a impostor who has been leading everyone along?

In the end the truth is a good place to hide because it is so easily twisted to meet other people’s expectations. The real delight for me was how three dimensional the characters become over the course of the novel. Their heartbreaks (and there are a lot of those) ring true and are the best kind of engrossing.

Definitely worth a read!

Trade Waiting: Endangered Species

Endangered Species

Written By: Mike Carey, Chris Yost, and Christos Gage

Art By: Scot Eaton, Mark Bagley, Mike Perkins, and Andrea De Vito

Issues:  X-Men: Endangered Species One-Shot, 17 8-page chapters.

Endangered Species is the X-Men event that works to lead into Messiah Complex.  The story follows Beast as he searches for a cure to the depowering of the world’s mutants.  He begins a world tour, meeting with all of Marvel’s top minds, heroic and villainous.  Beast pairs with his corrupt counterpart from the Age of Apocalypse, Dark Beast, and search the world for answers, from the ruins of Genosha to the Neverland mutant containment facility.

The series does some good things and some bad things.  Most of the bad comes from the format.  17 short 8-page stories doesn’t give much time for development.  The characters don’t really go anywhere.  I said the same thing about Illuminati, but I feel this is more from inadequate space to develop the characters more than too many heavy-hitters on the page.  The story is likewise just filler.  While pegged as the lead in to Messiah Complex, I don’t see how this should be required reading.

Hero

Hero by Perry Moore

There’s really nothing the super hero genre hasn’t already done.  It hasn’t really forged any new ground, and has instead continued using the same archetypes of heroes granted godlike powers and all kinds of insecurities.  “I can fly at the speed of sound, can’t be killed, and I just can’t get Lois Lane/Mary Jane/Jean Grey/etc.”  Don’t get me wrong, I love my superhero comics, but the major characters haven’t really evolved.  The same could be said for coming out literature.  Starting with Alex Sanchez’s Rainbow Boys, the number of books involving gay characters coming to grips with their sexuality has grown substantially.  But they are still basically Dawson’s Creek with gay characters.  “Oh, I love you but I can never be with you…Oh woe is me…”  Perry Moore’s Hero manages to merge the two genres into a pretty seamless package.  While it doesn’t forge new ground in either genre, as a combined effort, it’s a great young adult novel.

Thom Creed is not your average kid.  He goes to high school and he plays basketball, but he is far from being a normal teenager.  His father was once a superhero.  He was apprenticed to a character similar to Superman, but was disgraced and driven from the League, a massive group of heroes who protect the Earth and are modeled after DC’s pantheon.  The mystery of Thom’s father’s fall from grace is central to the plot, and is intriguing enough to keep reading.

Trade Waiting: New Avengers Illuminati

New Avengers: Illuminati

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis and Brian Reed

Art: Jim Cheung

Issues: Illuminati #1-5

I have been waiting for this book forever.  There are times that I regret waiting for the trades.  I’m impatient, but I definitely prefer reading the whole arc at once.  I have loved the concept of the Illuminati since their first appearance in New Avengers.  Marvel’s strongest characters banding together to take on monumental tasks.  Pretty cool stuff.  However, I was slightly disappointed by their actual miniseries.  That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the book, but I had it built up far more in my head, and the big revelation at the end had already been spoiled for me.

The Illuminati team is made up of six of Marvel’s strongest characters, each representing another team in this sort of meta-team.  Charles Xavier represents the X-men, Reed Richards is here for the Fantastic Four, Namor for Atlantis, Black Bolt for the Inhumans, Iron Man for the Avengers, and Dr. Strange representing all the magic users in the Marvel Universe.  The team first gathered together after the Kree-Skrull War, to determine how to safeguard Earth so such an event never happens again.  This mini-series shows their decision: Travel to the Skrull homeworld, make some threats, and blow up the Skrull emperor’s ship.

The Book Thief

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

Set in Nazi Germany on the brink of World War II, The Book Thief shows the life of a simple German family during some of the most violent acts of the twentieth century.  Death narrates the work, weaving in his observations of humanity and Nazi Germany with a great deal of dark humor.  The narration skips around at points, Death giving hints as to what is coming up, and then filling in the details.  Especially in the first ten pages this can be very confusing, but once you get into the flow, it’s an amazing read.

The bulk of the story follows Liesel Meminger who is sent to live with a foster family in Munich.  The Hubermans are a working class couple whose children are grown and moved on.  Mama is acid tongued and hates everyone while Papa is kind-hearted and refuses to join the Nazi Party.  Her new best friend Rudy idolizes Jesse Owens and constantly seeks kisses from Liesel.  Liesel’s foster family takes in a Jewish refugee, Max, assists Liesel’s efforts to learn to read.

The cast of characters are wonderfully drawn.  Each one is given nuances that make them impossible to not like.  Major events in Liesel’s story are marked by her stealing books.  At her brother’s funeral, she steals a book.  At a book burning, she steals a book.  As the story progresses, the importance and power of words is wonderfully shown.  Hitler is waging a war with words, and learning to use words is the only way to fight back.

I am typically not one for historical fiction, but I absolutely loved this book.  It’s dark and depressing, but hopeful as well.  I would recommend it to everyone.  It is marketed as young adult here in the US, but in Australia it was marketed at adults.  I would say for older teens with an interest in the subject, it would be fine, but any younger, the kids may not absorb it all.  Read it.