Girl Talkby Sheena McNeilReviews may contain information that could be considered 'spoilers'. Readers should proceed at their own risk. Publisher
Credits Grade: 4 Five stories about girls and relationships. Four have been previously published, two of which without color originally, so it's an updated release if you're already familiar, which I was not.Um, what? Each story left me confused and waiting for the ending. I would turn the pages, then flip back to make sure I hadn't missed something, only to be left disappointed and wondering what the point of it is. Some were enjoyable until that point, others less so. The art for most is a stylized cartoony style that's manages to make characters look like adults. It works here, but it's not a style I'd say I like or would want to see in general. "Girl Town" is the one with the most semblance of a complete story arc. I enjoyed the story and the characters, and was looking forward to reading more about them. The love / hate aspects of the budding relationship between two of them reads as realistic, even with the added extremism on one side. "Radishes" is fun. It follows two girls on a date (possibly as just friends, though there is potential for it to be more). There's a part that deals with a guy being pushy with his advances to one of them, and another part that seems to be a bit of self-acceptance / self-forgiveness. The ending is totally random and weird in that they find a food kiosk where the food does strange and temporary things like making you float or lose your hair or see your doppelganger. I enjoyed it a lot, even if the end still left me confused about what just happened for one character in particular. "Diana's Electric Tongue" is about a woman who orders herself a sex doll escort AI, partially to console herself over losing her boyfriend. She has an unusual relationship with his former-ex-now-girlfriend-again, including possible infatuation with her. Her obsession with these two people is clearly unhealthy. Her relationship with her escort doll is a mix of treating him like an object and treating him like her boyfriend, but her obsession keeps her from being happy. And the AI learns and adapts, so the ending is at best terrible and tragic, but it's also not much of an ending. And what's with the actual ending being the flashback to the accident that left her with a robotic tongue, specifically her battered and unconscious body with the tongue nearby? "The Big Burning House" was super annoying. It was overly excited dialogue for a vlog that kept tangenting and gushing about some movie. And it's completely anti-climactic. It teases us with this movie and how special it will be to see it, then they don't even get to watching it, just postulating their fan theories. Frankly, it's garbage. It's not even a story. It's not even a worthwhile dialogue. It's dribble. There's not really any illustrations either, just big, blob-y word balloons and a few random "screen shots". "Please Sleep Over" is about two women house / pet sitting. They are clearly in a relationship, and it is a positive one, so that won me over. The ending however, doesn't make any sense. Is one a ghost? Who were the other names the lead female was calling out for? Why was she all emotional at several points? It's like the story was just getting started and they threw in a huge twist and then abandoned it. Where's the rest? Written: October 24, 2018
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