Title: Ghost World
Author: Daniel Clowes
Format: trade paperback
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
Pub Date: 1998
Read: Mar 2011
Purchased: Shakespeare & Co in Greenwich Village
Why: One of the mini-challenges I gave myself was to read a graphic novel… This seemed at least reasonably interesting to me. And short.
Fulfills Challenge? yes
Notes: This is my first graphic novel in almost 10 years. And only my second overall. The first was during the summer between 10th and 11th grade when I read The Crow for a Gothic Lit class (I ended up not being in the class after all, go figure). We were also assigned The Dark Knight Returns, which I attempted to read but really could not understand at all. I actually liked The Crow, which I was not expecting since it looked rather dark and emo.
Review/Thoughts:
There are only a few things really that kept this from being a five for me. The first is that occasionally the scenes would switch without warning and I found myself a bit confused. This might be fairly normal for graphic novels, but as I’m not used to it, I had to stop a few times and re-orient myself. The other is that I didn’t really love the drawing style, but that’s surely a matter of taste. I actually do love the top third of the front and back (not shown) covers and wish the rest of the graphic novel looked a bit more like that. There’s just something really compelling about Enid’s face on the front cover.
That said, I thought this was a great graphic novel and can understand its cult-like status. Clowes captures the teenage voice so well, it’s like reading the way most teens speak. There’s angst and insecurities and vulnerability, self-assuredness and condescension. I found the progression of Enid and Rebecca’s friendship to be realistic and though not entirely unexpected, still moving and sad. The ending is left deliberately ambiguous, and it was interesting to read what others have made of the ending, but I personally choose to view it through a hopeful lens.
Final Verdict: 
