What We’re Reading

The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy & Goth Girl | Barry Lyga

Rating:

Fanboy’s school life has been less than stellar, especially after the forced move to a new school, where he got off on the wrong foot and never got right. While he had his moments, like The Great Ecuadorian Tortoise Blight, all in all, he could really do without daily interaction with his classmates.

When Mitchell Frampton starts pounding on him daily in gym class, it seems unusually cruel, and yet perfectly normal for his life. The middle-of-the-night IM he receives about it isn’t. Against his better judgement, he agrees to meet the mystery writer, who he realizes must be the black and white blur who’s been watching his gym beatings.

Life gets even stranger, after Donnie and Kyra meet.

She’s moody, she likes graphic novels, but makes fun of the ones he reads, she’s always showing up in a different car and driving recklessly…on top of it all, she’s his first female friend, and only his second friend in town, period. Despite all her quirks, he likes her. Enough to share his work-in-progress, a graphic novel his only prior friend doesn’t even know about.

The more involved Fanboy and Goth girl get, the worse things seem to go. While he’d like to be different, Donnie is still first and foremost a guy. And while Goth girl is different, she’s also first and foremost a person with feelings and sensitivities.

There’s no shortage of tension in this story. But it’s also full of laughs and deep thoughts and great anecdotes. Self-realizations and epiphanies. And while it’s a story about a comic book geek, it’s a story that any book-lover should enjoy. Myself, I’ve never gotten into comics or graphic novels–it’s not a style I can manage to read. But this book was great. I had a blast reading it, and I’ll be looking forward to Lyga’s next work.

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