Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Anya's Ghost - Vera Brosgol

Title: Anya's Ghost
Author: Vera Brosgol
Pages: 224 pages
Published: 2011
Challenges: 2012 Support Your Library
Genre: Graphic Novels, Young Adult
Edition: Paperback
Source: Library

Description: Anya could really use a friend. But her new BFF isn’t kidding about the “Forever” part . . . Of all the things Anya expected to find at the bottom of an old well, a new friend was not one of them. Especially not a new friend who’s been dead for a century. Falling down a well is bad enough, but Anya’s normal life might actually be worse. She’s embarrassed by her family, self-conscious about her body, and she’s pretty much given up on fitting in at school. A new friend—even a ghost—is just what she needs. Or so she thinks. Spooky, sardonic, and secretly sincere, Anya’s Ghost is a wonderfully entertaining debut from author/artist Vera Brosgol. (via Goodreads.com)


Thoughts:  Overall, I thought it was very good and quite honestly, it was a quick read for me.  While it was only 224 pages, it seemed much shorter than that and the story really only got started going until sometime closer to the end when Anya was starting to put things together and started to realize that something was amiss. But it was really quite good and kept me reading for the hour's drive to a spot we were headed.  What I didn't like was that the story felt like it was going nowhere for a bit during the beginning, but once the story got started, I really started to enjoy it and would be interested in another book on Anya's adventures and can definitely see the point of the story.  For me the turning point in the book was the time when she went to the public library to work out what happened to the ghost that kept following her around.  After that the story seemed to slow down to a manageable pace and could see Anya change, probably for the better, and understand that this wasn't going to last forever.


Honestly, I felt that the book could have been a little longer, as I felt that the story was a little short, but if you do take the story in context, it was probably just right.


Bottom line: Since its a fairly quick read, at least it was for me, I would probably recommend this book to people that have read things like Blankets, Maus, Persopolis, etc.  I would also recommend it to people who want to read something in the graphic novel genre to get their feet wet and those that read more literary type fiction.  Overall, it was pretty good.


Rating: 4/5


Pages for 2012: 5654



2 comments:

Trish @ Love, Laughter, Insanity said...

I often find with graphic novels that I wish they were longer. That said, I'm still interested in this one. The graphics remind me a bit of Persepolis (which I loved).

Melissa Wiebe said...

Its very much like that one in terms of the graphics. It was still a very enjoyable read.

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