I had heard a lot of wonderful things about Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan before I bought it. Actually, I think most of the wonderful things I heard were actually READ on the back cover of the book. But, anyway. . . Finally I found it on mega-sale at a used book store and figured, why not?
First, the pictures are totally wonderful and gorgeous. Comparisons by The New York Times Book Review to the style of Tintin are well founded. But, for me, the story left a lot to be desired. In a nutshell:
(1) girl stalks boy for mysterious reason,
(2) boy finds out from girl that (his) long-estranged father may have been killed in a recent bombing,
(3) boy discovers girl had intimate relationship with boy's father,
(4) boy mostly can't stand girl and is mean to her,
(5) girl keeps coming back for more,
(6) boy and girl inexplicably have sex,
(7) boy does some jerky thing to get girl to finally leave,
(8) boy desperately seeks to rekindle tenuous relationship with girl.
Oh, and we never really know what happened to the boy's father, anyway.
Entertainment Weekly called this, "a triumphant book about not-so-quiet desperation," but I don't think the story was nuanced enough to earn such praise. We just don't know enough about the characters to care what happens to them, and so are left disappointed in the end - wanting more, but also a bit bored.
More positively, I just got a free copy of Guilt & Pleasure magazine from, er, summer 2007 (before Exit Wounds came out) and it features a short strip by Rutu Modan that I really like, actually, called "Energy Blockage." Also, G&P is such an awesome magazine. I'm only 22 pages in, and I'm totally hooked.
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