Women

This week I read "This One Summer" by the Tamaki cousins.  It's a graphic novel that narrates the life of Rose and her family's annual trip to a cottage for vacation. 

The first thing I noticed in This One Summer was the artwork.  In most of the graphic novels I've read in this class up until this point, the art style has been, kinda rough.  Not that it was drawn poorly, but the art is usually clean, bold lines and sometimes colored.  With This One Summer, the artwork is soft, and the line work looks like it was done with a paint brush which adds a delicate touch to the art.  I also think the choice of not using color was a smart choice, because towards the middle of the graphic novel, I found out that her mom is suffering from depression due to a miscarriage she had awhile back, and the solid black used with the monotone grays really shows the emotion of depression.

Another big thing I noticed was the story.  I'm not quite sure if this is fiction or non-fiction, because of how well the story is told.  Everything about the story is believable, there are no super heroes, no monsters or worldly creatures, just a story about a girl and her family on vacation.  The story starts off as just a normal girl on vacation with her parents, but then Rose meets the store clerk, starts to develop a crush on him, then finds out the girl he's been hanging out with is pregnant, and so on. 

The last thing I noticed was the characters in the novel.  Each character has his or her own personality.  Rose is the typical teenage girl, developing a crush on a older boy, rebelling against her parents.  Rose's friend's mom is a sort of hippie, all natural, spiritual.  Rose's dad is by far my favorite character, he's down to earth, kind of the "cool" dad (One thing I absolutely loved about his character was the fact that he mentioned Neil Peart, which is the drummer for Rush, which is my favorite band).  It's one thing to have a really driving story, which I believe was executed beautifully, but when you add in characters with their own unique personalities, it becomes a work of art. 

I was a little skeptical of how this novel was going to be, but truth be told, by the end of it, I wanted to find out more.  Did Jenny have the baby? How is Rose's mom dealing with the depression? Do they go back to the cottage next year, and if so, is her friend still going to be there?  I think that's what sets apart good novels and masterpieces, the constant desire to find out more about the story and characters after the final page.