Tina’s Mouth: an Existential Comic Diary by Keshni Kashyap Illustrated by Mari Araki YP FIC KASHYAP

Read through the pages of Tina Malhotra’s existential diary, a high school assignment to answer the all-consuming question: who am I? Well, for Tina it’s complicated.  She’s a non-religious East Indian-American, she’s looking for a use for her mouth, she’s in love with the father of existentialism Jean Paul Sartre, and she’s about to learn more about herself and life then she ever thought possible in one year. 

Think a high school, demented, profound, slightly profane, edgy, existential Diary of a Wimpy Kid with a totally awesomely out there female protagonist and you start to see the appeal of Tina’s Mouth.  The book is marketed as a good companion to the graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (YP FIC SATRAPI or DVD PERSEPOL), but it really is quite a stretch.  Both are about young women coming of age and both are quite good, but that’s the only comparison point.  Mari Araki makes a great artist for the book.  The designs are simple and you can really believe the book is written and drawn by an artistically-inclined, inward-seeking teenage girl.  That leads to some of the books weaknesses.  Tina’s views on life, love, friendship, and cliques are witty and feel honest, but hardly groundbreaking or original.  The fact that this feels like it is a honest look at high school means that much of the ground covered has been covered (and sometimes better) by plenty of YA novels.  The saving grace is that this is a graphic novel diary and that elevates the occasionally unoriginal material to something fresh and new.  Not for all comic fans, but if you want something funny and unique in your comics this is a good, quick read.

Check our catalog for Tina’s Mouth here.

Big Questions, or, Asomatognosia: Whose Hand is it Anyway? by Anders Nilsen YP FIC NILSEN

A staggering, surreal fable in which birds, an owl, a snake, a bomb, a crazed pilot, and an idiot struggle with Big Questions and try not to die too horribly while pondering them.

Asmomatognosia is a disorder in which your brain doesn’t recognize the sensation of one or more limbs. It’s a fitting subtitle to this book in which most every central character loses one’s self or life searching for a greater meaning. This is a 600 page epic of over 15 years work.  The art style is haunting and stark.  Nilsen’s simple designs make his largely animal protagonists indistinguishable from each other, but this has a larger thematic point.  This book uses animals to look at the deepest philosophical questions humankind face, but as the title suggests, this tome contains big questions not big answers. A must read for fans of comics as an artistic medium, but probably a little dry and offbeat for fans of the average manga or superhero comic.  Check it out and give it a chance, it just might wrinkle your brain a bit!

Nothing by Janne Teller YP FIC TELLER

One day Pierre Anthon, a seemingly normal Danish 7th grader, realizes that life has no meaning. He therefore decides to spend all his time in a plum tree trying to get used to doing nothing. This causes the rest of his class to question the meaning in their lives. Not wanting to question the meaning their lives they decide on a decisive course of actions: pelting Pierre with rocks. Unfortunately, Pierre is unfazed and continues ridiculing their belief in any meaning. They then come up with a master plan: build a Pile of Meaning in an abandoned saw mill. Each child must give up what is most precious. When they discover that they cannot give up what they love the children then start to pick another child's item. This leads to bitterness and each child trying to have revenge by picking something more precious then what they lost. Then things go terribly, horribly, tragically wrong.

WARNING: This novel is dark with a capital D. But I loved it anyways. It is creepy, sad, and absolutely unique. It takes a really cold and serious look at what people will do to hold onto feeling 'normal'. The kids start by picking items that are really personal, but then bitterness at losing a favorite item leads them to pick some seriously evil choices to take from their classmates. The fact that the setting is Danish didn't bother me and I actually liked having a foreignness to the story. The kids and what they do could all be set anywhere but the bleakness of Denmark did add to the story. This is definitely a good read for fans of books like Lord of the Flies or other books that show what monsters lie in the hearts of people.