Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by harrietj
Ghost World by Daniel Clowes
4.0
Reading this as a 33 year old is very different from reading it as a fifteen year old.
Of course Clowes' art is as stylish and cold as ever. Of course his dialogue is as well-observed and cutting - but I found the characters much sadder and the ending hit a lot harder, too. Enid is so transparently desperately insecure and just edging into some real self awareness. She's the quintessential 'will come into her own the minute she leaves town and grows up a bit' girl. The incredibly devoted and yet deeply apathetic female friendship (of convenience?) that comes from living in a small town and the push-and-pull of needing each other and needing to get away from each other in equal measure is very well realised.
The one thing I will say is that I actually enjoyed the experience of reading this comic even less as an adult than I did as a slightly bemused teenager. The humour works, but it's cruel, and twisted up to a point where it's really difficult to tell who is the butt of the joke. The peripheral characters, or the girls themselves? Perhaps everyone?
I love Dan Clowes but Ghost World might not be my favourite book of his, even if I think it probably is one of his most acutely realised.
Of course Clowes' art is as stylish and cold as ever. Of course his dialogue is as well-observed and cutting - but I found the characters much sadder and the ending hit a lot harder, too. Enid is so transparently desperately insecure and just edging into some real self awareness. She's the quintessential 'will come into her own the minute she leaves town and grows up a bit' girl. The incredibly devoted and yet deeply apathetic female friendship (of convenience?) that comes from living in a small town and the push-and-pull of needing each other and needing to get away from each other in equal measure is very well realised.
The one thing I will say is that I actually enjoyed the experience of reading this comic even less as an adult than I did as a slightly bemused teenager. The humour works, but it's cruel, and twisted up to a point where it's really difficult to tell who is the butt of the joke. The peripheral characters, or the girls themselves? Perhaps everyone?
I love Dan Clowes but Ghost World might not be my favourite book of his, even if I think it probably is one of his most acutely realised.