Book Review: Elle(s): The New Girl by Kid Toussaint and Aveline Stokart

Elle(s): The New Girl

by Kid Toussaint (writer) and Aveline Stokart (YA PB (Graphic Novel) Toussaint)

 

Elle is the “new kid” at her school, and has a little trouble fitting into the social cliques. Mainly because she has six different personalities, most of which only come out and become dominant when she is anxious or stressed. And, unfortunately, in the “new school” environment, that is frequent. Fortunately, she’s got a support structure of a group of new friends, particularly her best friend, Maelys, who recognizes that there’s something different about Elle and wants to help her cope.

 

Writer Kid Toussaint does a great job of capturing modern teenage angst and the struggle to develop a strong, unique personality in an environment encouraging conformity. And artist Aveline Stokart does an incredible, beautiful job with their painted artwork, creating a lush, detailed world, people with distinctive characters. Elle’s six different personalities (referred to as “moods”) are denoted by six different hair colors and mood/color palettes. There are also shadings of paranormal elements, as some of the latent personalities wish to take over from Elle’s normal default mood.

 

I strongly recommend this graphic novel, and look forward to additional forthcoming volumes in what is planned to be a series.

 

( official Aveline Stokart web site ) | ( official Kid Toussaint Instagram feed )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: Together We Will Go by J. Michael Straczynski

Together We Will Go

by J. Michael Straczynski (Straczynski)

 

I’ve been a fan of the writing of J. Michael Straczynski for many years. He is perhaps best known as a writer for both television and the comic book industry. Personally, I loved the series Babylon 5, which he created and executive produced, and for which he wrote the majority of the episodes over a 5-season run of 110+ episodes and TV-movies.

 

Together We Will Go is Straczynski’s first original novel in over twenty years (his first 3 were either horror or mystery novels, published between 1988 and 2000). This is general fiction, and while I did enjoy it very much, it is not going to be for everyone.

 

To be blunt, Together We Will Go is about suicide. A failed writer hatches a plan to create an interactive narrative work, using the life stories of a group of suicidal strangers. He buys a bus in Miami, has it rigged up with technology to be a mobile WiFi hotspot, equipped with equipment to record and store tons of data, then sends out a message to online forums and bulletin boards — this bus is going to travel across the country, picking up anyone who is serious about killing themselves, and at the end of the journey, the bus and all its passengers will drive off a cliff in San Francisco, killing them all. In order to join the group of travelers, you have to sign a release, and then you have to live-journal your experiences, to leave a record of your life behind.

 

This novel is epistolary in nature — it is told entirely in journal fragments, from the dozen or more people who join the trip — blog entries, voice messages, emails, all non-traditional storytelling elements.

 

There is a lot of pain in this novel — we get to see up-close-and-personal the kinds of struggles that make a variety of people suicidal. Anyone with serious depression issues will probably be triggered by elements of this story. But all the characters are fascinating and well-developed.

 

The cross-country journey reveals a lot of hidden truths, and deceptions. For those of us living her in Nebraska, you may enjoy the fact that there are scenes set at Omaha’s Lauritzen Gardens, and in Lexington, that all prove pivotal to the plot of novel.

 

Like I said, it’s not going to be for everyone, but personally, I found it to be riveting reading.

 

( publisher’s official Together We Will Go web page) | ( official J. Michael Straczynski Twitter feed )

 

See Scott C.’s review of J. Michael Straczynski’s TV series Babylon 5, in the June 2005 Staff Recommendations on the libraries' BookGuide resource pages!

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: How to Become a Planet by Nicole Melleby

How to Become a Planet

by Nicole Melleby (j Melleby)

 

Pluto is a kid who loves visiting science centers, watching meteor showers, and working in her mom’s pizza restaurant by the beach. Or at least she did until she had to skip the end of seventh grade and was diagnosed with depression and anxiety.

 

This summer, Pluto has a list of goals that she believes–if she accomplishes them — will mean she’ll go back to the Pluto she was before. She meets a new friend who has a list of her own and they find they can help each other. This story is filled with references to astronomy, especially about the planet Pluto’s re-designation and the Challenger disaster. While Pluto-the-person’s struggles can be tough to experience with her at times and there’s no magical “fix,” tweens and adults readers both can learn a lot about what it looks like to live with depression and learn how to thrive again.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Benefits of Being An Octopus by Ann Braden or Focused by Alyson Gerber.)

 

( official How to Become a Planet page on the official Nicole Melleby web site )

 

Recommended by Garren H.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Everything is Flammable by Gabrielle Bell

Everything is Flammable
by Gabrielle Bell [Biography Bell] 

This is a book that I believe I picked up solely because of the eye-catching cover and title. It is a memoir about a young woman with anxiety, depression, and other increasingly common mental health issues, her tenuous relationship with her mother, and their struggles to find quality of life despite financial issues. Although I would’ve preferred a traditional book for the subjects the author writes about here, it seems that Bell still has quite a lot to process regarding her relationship with her mother and her responsibilities towards her, so the graphic novel format here leaves a lot to ponder for all parties (author, reader, subjects, etc.). The extremely short chapters here describe the ways in which her friends take care of her as she determines her next steps, and there are many chapters that introduce us to the people in her mother’s life as well. This great work showcases how it sometimes takes a village to raise an adult, even one who has adult children of their own. This great work only barely touches on the interconnected reliance we need to rebuild to help stabilize the lives of our loved ones and neighbors.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel.]

[ publisher’s official Everything is Flammable web page ] | [ official Gabrielle Bell web site ]

Recommended by Naomi S.
Eiseley and Williams Branch Libraries and the Bookmobile

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

Shockaholic by Carrie Fisher (audiobook-on-cd)

Shockaholic
by Carrie Fisher [Compact Disc Biography Fisher] 

As with “Wishful Drinking” by Fisher, I opted to listen to the audiobook, since she reads it herself. I think Carrie Fisher was absolutely brilliant, and this book is further proof of that. It’s amazing to me, only two months after her death, that this book was published in 2011…. if only because she mentions her upcoming death at least twice in this book. It was a bit eerie.

Aside from that, I really enjoyed this book. Carrie Fisher was a no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is woman who sounds like she took no crap from anyone, except herself, of course. She was a tortured soul, but it seemed like she was really coming to terms with things and getting her life in order. This was, of course, before the 7th episode of the Star Wars saga…

What I appreciated most, perhaps, about this book was the talking she did of other famous people that she knew–specifically, Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor, and her father (Eddie Fisher), among others.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Wishful Drinking, by Carrie Fisher, As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, by Cary Elwes, or But Enough About Me: A Memoir, by Burt Reynolds, all read by their authors as audiobooks.]

[ official CarrieFisher.com web site ]

Recommended by Tracy T.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

Wishful Drinking

Wishful Drinking
by Carrie Fisher [Biography Fisher]

Daughter of actress Debbie Reynolds and singer Eddie Fisher, Carrie Fisher had one heck of a Hollywood childhood! She shares the trials and tribulations of growing up in the spotlight in a candid, hysterically funny, and yet touching way. -- recommended by Kimberly S. - Anderson and Bethany Branch Libraries


[Also available in book-on-cd format.][ official Carrie Fisher web site ]
Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

Ten (or more) new reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide web site. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog over the course of the entire month.