#like scott pilgrim vs the world
Short version: Maggie makes the difficult transition from home school to public high school, made more difficult by the fact that up until that point her friends had only been her three brothers. At school she discovers that her brothers have history she knew nothing about. All the while she is haunted by a silent ghost from the town’s maritime urban legend.
What I thought: There’s a lot going on in Maggie’s story, everything from a recent divorce to a sort-of new crush to new friends to local history. It feels like it could make for a more interesting text novel than a graphic one. I liked that Maggie herself does grow up a little over the course of the story, but not in any profound way like the old genre of buildingsroman usually does. Yes she does eventually make a stand and take responsibility for certain things in her life, but it’s done very easily and she doesn’t learn a thing about consequences.
I guess what bugged me is that it has such a great setup, and such cute art (the same lady who brought us Adventures of Superhero Girl), but after more than half the volume, the plot hasn’t really taken off, and once it does, it falls back again fairly quickly and benignly. They spend a lot of time puzzling on what’s the Big Secret that made her oldest brother and new crush such hostile enemies, and the reason for it ends up being so boring I read that part over to make certain I hadn’t missed some subtext, but nope, just garden-variety conflict. I thought it would be something actually worth their reactions and glares, maybe something humiliating or the crush mistreated someone in a truly unforgivable fashion, but turns out he was just kind of rude a couple times.
The ghost. Why was there a ghost at all? They never find out what the ghost wanted, and she mostly served to represent Maggie’s absent mother, without being actually connected to her. Maggie does try to help the ghost find peace, but the only thing she could think of didn’t work, and the ghost never says anything or offers closure. Frustrating for everyone.
Also frustrating was the fact that Maggie blames herself for her parents’ divorce, and the only people who know that she does either don’t care about the pain that misconception causes her, or actually agree with her. That’s never touched on either, and we’re left with no more closure than with the ghost.
Overall it was okay, I like Hicks as an artist and I like her understanding of the everyday struggle, but this one felt like it needed to be either longer or a different medium.
Read it if you liked: Mercuryby Hope Larson, Adventures of Superhero Girl, also by Faith Erin Hicks, Scott Pilgrim vs the World by Brian Lee O’Malley, anything by John Green.
